


Cut to the Feeling

by canary



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elementary School, Families of Choice, Low Conflict, M/M, Noted ally and platonic co-parent Kevin Hayes, Pats will never learn to love glittery nail polish, Philadelphia Flyers, Plot devices include Petfinder.com and the eternal battle between White Claw and Truly, Slow Burn, but TK still loves a bitch, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:18:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 68,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22614646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canary/pseuds/canary
Summary: There’s no official protocol for handling the kids of the rich and the famous at Rittenhouse Friends, because the school’s policy is that all their students deserve the same education: whether they’re on scholarship or their grandfather is in the U.S. Senate.TK gets that, in spirit. Totally gets that. Supports it. Believes in it. Lives the mission. Et cetera. In the three years he’s been at Rittenhouse Friends, he’s taught the kids of no less than four Eagles; the son of the Phillies’ $330 million man; and the late-in-life daughter the CEO of Comcast had with his third wife.He just wishes someone had given him a heads-up this time, that’s all.
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 265
Kudos: 977





	Cut to the Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> This one was a team effort. Thanks to everyone who put up with me whining about this on the internet at 5:45 ET for like, two straight months. 
> 
> And of course, sincerest appreciation goes to makeit_takeit & manybumblebees for beta reads & moral support.
> 
> Do not concern yourself with trying to make the ages of the various other Philly sports cameos and their (mostly-but-not-entirely-fictitious) offspring line up. I picked them based purely on who would be pleasing to me.
> 
> Title is from Carly Rae Jepson's "Cut to the Feeling."
> 
> Content notes: two non-graphic descriptions of past homophobic violence and one use of a homophobic slur.

There’s no official protocol for handling the kids of the rich and the famous at Rittenhouse Friends, because the school’s policy is that all their students deserve the same education: whether they’re there on scholarship or their grandfather is in the U.S. Senate.

TK gets that, in spirit. Totally gets that. Supports it. Believes in it. Lives the mission. Et cetera. In the three years he’s been at Rittenhouse Friends, he’s taught the kids of no less than four Eagles; the son of the Phillies’ $330 million man; and the late-in-life daughter the CEO of Comcast had with his third wife.

He just wishes someone had given him a heads-up this time, that’s all.

“_Who_ came to back-to-school night?” Lawson crows. “Say it again, Teeks. I didn’t hear you.”

He can feel himself blushing. Hides his face in his beer. They’re in their favorite hole-in-the-wall in Center City, eating Tuesday night $2 tacos to celebrate TK’s twenty-first first day of school. “Don’t make me say it.”

“Was it,” Lawson can’t even contain himself; TK doesn’t know why they’re friends, “your _favorite Flyer_? The guy whose sweater you wear to every game? The dude I get to hear about your thirst for, every fucking day?”

“I don’t talk about him that much!”

“You absolutely do.”

“I respect him as a player, okay,” TK hisses.

“You respect his abs.”

“He is the _parent_ of my _student_,” he whisper-yells. “I can’t have an opinion about his abs. And he was there with his _mom _and his _secret kid_.”

Lawson is laughing so hard he’s crying. “Bud. You are so thirsty for that poor bastard.”

“I am a _professional_!” He is. He’s a professional, which is why he had only dripped like, _half_ his mouthful of coffee down the front of his shirt when he looked up and saw _Nolan fucking Patrick_ walk into the gym where he was doing his back to school meet-and-greets.

First he thought he’d been hallucinating; next he thought someone was pranking him.

But no, really, for real, there was Nolan Patrick—known Philadelphia Flyer, frequent fantasy fodder—holding the hand of a tiny little girl. He was so big, and she was so small, that TK’s brain kind of…short circuited.

He was rescued by, holy shit, _was that Nolan Patrick’s mother_ sweeping in to introduce herself?

“This is Nolan,” she said. “And this is Adeline.”

Muscle memory kicked in. “Hi, Adeline,” he said, kneeling to greet her. She looked at him with big blue eyes, then immediately hid her face in _Nolan Patrick’s leg_.

Because _Nolan Patrick_ had a _kindergartener_? TK just like—needed a minute. Several minutes. Preferably all of the minutes, because Nolan Patrick was also saying, “She’s uh, a little shy,” in his deep, gravelly voice.

“That’s okay,” the teacher known to his students as Coach K said, in the voice of a professional educator who had no feelings at all about anything in this situation, other than a sincere interest in helping the next generation of students at the Rittenhouse Friends School develop a lifelong appreciation for athletics, while honoring the integrity and intrinsic value of each individual child. This educator stood up, and shook hands with the Patricks, and talked about age-appropriate play-based learning, and did not make one single nervous joke about _ha ha, probably don’t have much to teach _this_ kid, right?_ because he had _most certainly not_ almost memorized Certain SportsNet Profiles of Certain Parents.

Mrs. Patrick did most of the talking, fortunately, and TK focused very carefully on the space between her two eyebrows. He was supposed to be _centering the child in the introduction to the Friends community_ but unfortunately, he could not look at her, because looking at Adeline and her little pink dress with her little Nike sneakers meant looking at Nolan Patrick, and how he was bending his head towards her and a few strands of hair were falling across his cheek and—

Mrs. Patrick coughed. Smiled.

And TK got with the program, because to have Nolan Patrick ask to switch his secret daughter into Amanda Kessel’s section of P.E. was _unimaginable_.

Back at the bar, Lawson is still laughing at him. TK steals one of his tacos in revenge. They’re only $2 and Lawson works for some fancy company where he has to wear a tie every day—so that bastard can afford to treat TK right, okay, if he’s going to mock him to his face.

“Do people know about this, though,” he asks, talking right over top of Law’s cackles. “The secret kindergartener, and stuff.”

“If anyone was going to know, it would be you,” Lawson points out. “Since you are the Philadelphia metro’s foremost Nolan Patrick expert.”

“Shut up, I am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am not,” and this is going basically the same way their conversations have been going since they were six years old, carpooling to youth soccer in Williamsport, Pennsylvania; but this is a _whole new situation_. “Seriously, Law. Secret kid.”

Lawson pulls out his phone and starts googling every combination of “Nolan Patrick + kid” and “Nolan Patrick + secret baby” that he can think of. Mostly it just shoots back images that TK is uh, already familiar with—Flyers holiday hospital visits, community events, Nolan (holy shit does Travis have to start thinking about him as _Mr. Patrick_) looking all big and awkward with that _goddamn_ smile it seems like he’s always trying to suppress—but there’s one post in the third page of results on a like, puck bunny tumblr (not something TK would usually fuck with) where someone asks for the deets on Nolan Patrick and winnipegbunny99 writes back: _sorry love, don’t recommend trying to get on that! he hung out w my friend from high school and it did NOT go well, got her pregnant and fucked back off to Philly like he didn’t have a care in the world!!_

Like eight people pile on immediately, saying there’s no way that’s true, but winnipegbunny99 goes all _¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ not saying any more than that, she never wanted it in the media!_ And then 15 people tell her she’s a bitch for putting out this fake story that her fake friend obviously wouldn’t want on the internet even if there was only a 1% chance it was real, and winnipegbunny99 does a full flounce into the tumblr sunset.

TK and Lawson kind of—stare at each other for a while.

“An NHL player with a secret baby, huh,” Law says, finally. “I think Claire read that romance novel a few weeks ago.”

The thing is, it’s fine once TK has calmed down a little. It’s not like he’s ever going to have to _see_ Nolan Patrick, really—he’s the fucking gym teacher, it’s not like he’s Adeline’s lead teacher or anything.

He’s going to be chill about it.

And he _is_ chill about it, through the first week of classes, through Flyers training camp. Adeline’s great in gym: still shy, but she likes dancing, likes acting out animals, and TK majorly vibes with her aardvark impression. Her gross motor coordination is well ahead of the developmental curve. Put a ball in front of her, and her little jaw stiffens up, and she gets a steely glint in her blue eyes that TK has previously observed barreling around the Farg a time or two or five.

So _fine_, they do have to have one conversation where TK pulls her to the side and talks to her about not knocking our friends down. Yes, even if they aren’t as good at soccer as we are. Yes, even if we have a chance to score a goal. Because we want our friends to have fun, too, don’t we? And teamwork is important, right?

Adeline narrows her eyes. “That’s what Dad says.”

“It’s probably true, then.” TK can’t handle the thought of Nolan Patrick talking to his tiny daughter about the importance of teamwork, in his deep, mumbly monotone.

“But Aunt Madison says that if boys are getting in your way, you’re supposed to push them into a snowbank.”

“Your Aunt Madison is a very smart lady,” TK says, “but we don’t have any snowbanks in Philadelphia right now, so it hurts when you fall down.”

She narrows her eyes again. “I’ll think about it.”

“You do that,” TK tells her, then offers her a hand as they go back to the game.

So that’s okay. Just TK, doing his job. Being normal. Having no feelings about anything, at all.

“I don’t want to go,” he says a few days later. Lawson has corporate tickets to some meet-and-greet event with the Flyers.

“You understand that you are coming to this event with me,” Lawson tells him.

“You can’t make me.”

“I’ll tell my mom who spray-painted the dog blue at my cousin’s wedding.”

“_You would not_,” TK gasps, scandalized.

“I wouldn’t want to have to tell her the real story,” Lawson says, looking down at his contacts list with a decent approximation of real sorrow. “I would certainly hate to have to tell her that her son’s dearest friend has been lying to her, for years, about an incident that resulted in his cousin’s—her beloved niece’s—wedding dress getting covered in blue paint. It would bring me real pain,” he says, finger hovering over the contact button for Mom.

“You don’t care this much,” TK tells him. “Take Claire. Take anyone else.”

“No,” says Law. “I want to watch you suffer.”

“You’re the worst best friend I’ve ever had.”

“Back atcha, bud.”

Travis refuses—abso-_fucking_-lutely refuses—to wear a Nolan Patrick jersey. Which kind of cuts into his Flyers sweater game, since it turns out that he, uh, only owns Nolan Patrick jerseys. Lawson laughs so hard he has to take himself into the kitchen for a glass of water; Travis retaliates by sneaking into his bedroom and stealing his vintage Lindros jersey out of its glass case on his wall. It’s massive and comes almost down to his knees, but he refuses to care about anything other than how annoyed Law gets.

TK tells him it serves him right.

“We don’t even know if your man is going to be there,” Lawson reminds him. “Maybe he’s got like—family stuff.”

“Yeah,” Travis says, concentrating on not killing anyone as he edges his car down Broad Street. “He probably won’t be, right?”

But there he is, sitting at a table between Kevin Hayes and Joel Farabee. Hayes is telling some loud story, making the mother-daughter combo at the front of the autograph line crack up; Nolan—Mr. Patrick—_fuck_—looks like he’s trying to smother a smile. Farabee’s not bothering, leaning back in his chair and cackling up at the ceiling.

So basically, TK’s not going anywhere near that. He drags Lawson over to Gritty; talks to one of the season ticket sales reps for way too long, especially since she’s trying to narrow in on Law, with his corporate pass and shiny blond hair.

It’s going well. It’s going fine.

He just—okay. Nobody has ever accused him of being _shy_. He’s met plenty of Flyers before, at regular fan events or all-access swanky shit with Lawson. He has no problem shooting the shit for a few minutes, talking about the last game or the next game or literally whatever the fuck comes up. He had a pretty long conversation with Hayes at one of these things last season, actually: somehow they got into an argument about the best brunch spot in Rittenhouse Square, and at the end of it Hayes had thumped him on the shoulder, thanked him for the support, and called him a _solid dude_.

He’s even met Nolan Patrick. Mumbled _thanks_ at him, while Nolan signed his jersey, then onto the next person in line.

But there’s somehow a huge difference between _fan events_ and _his real life_. He doesn’t want to be creepy; he doesn’t want to be weird, doesn’t want Nolan to feel like his tiny daughter—his _tiny secret daughter!_—is in the hands of some rando wanting to bask in the like, reflected glory, someone who wants to ask him for a picture so he can brag to all his buddies later. The thought of going up to that table, wondering if Nolan is going to recognize him—if _Nolan Patrick_ is going to recognize _him_—if he’s going to have to awkwardly explain, _oh, uh, from—Rittenhouse Friends? Gym teacher? Had to talk to your child about rules and expectations?_ while knots squirm around in his stomach, while Nolan blinks those sleepy blue eyes, all stiffly polite like he always is at fan events (which TK knows, because TK goes to them and watches him, which is: beyond creepy!), and then asks for Adeline to be moved to Amanda Kessel’s gym class.

The season ticket rep still has Lawson pinned down, so TK seizes his opportunity to bail.

He slips through the crowd, ducks into the nearest bathroom. It’s empty, blessedly, and he’s about to look himself in the eye in the mirror and give himself a good, stern talking-to when someone walks in and—it’s Nolan fucking Patrick.

Nolan blinks at him in halfway recognition, and this is absolutely as bad as TK thought it would be.

“Um, hi,” TK says, before he can think about it too much, because his automatic reaction in any situation where he’s uncomfortable is to just—start talking, a habit that his mother never managed to break him of. “I’m uh. Coach K. Er, Konecny. From Rittenhouse.”

“Oh,” Nolan says. “Yeah,” and then he makes a face, this kind of halfway wince that TK recognizes from post-game interviews when he’s not loving the questions the dumbass reporters are asking him.

“It’s fine,” TK says. “I was just, um, going,” back out to the lobby, where he is going to contemplate hurling himself off the top of the escalator.

“No, wait,” _Nolan Patrick_ tells him, then kind of—smiles? TK is having an out of body experience, in a bathroom in the Wells Fargo Center. “Addie loves your class.”

“She does?” he says, cautiously. “She’s um, a great kid,” and then he’s babbling about gross motor skills and developmental curves and Jesus Christ, Travis, _shut up_, but Nolan Patrick is kind of—blushing, and looking at the toes of his sneakers, and when TK’s finally engaged the emergency brake on his runaway mouth, Nolan looks up and smiles.

He says, “Yeah, it’s kind of—new, but she really is great,” and TK is _done_, he is just _fully done_. And that’s before Nolan asks him, “So do you want to come meet the guys?” almost as if he would actually like Travis to experience a nice thing.

“You didn’t like, go to the bathroom though,” is what TK says, because he is…terrible.

Nolan kind of makes a face. “I just needed a break for a minute, actually.”

“Don’t let me get in your way,” TK tells him, because he is now getting in his _own_ way, but Nolan shrugs it off. Walks him over to where Hayes and Farabee are grabbing bottles of water; introduces him as _Addie’s favorite teacher_; gets whacked by Kevin Hayes for the second time in his life, and asked if he’s admitted that Day By Day is the best brunch in Philly yet.

“Oh, you know each other?” Nolan asks, eyes flicking from TK to Hayes and back again.

“We met like, one time,” TK says, which is pointless because Hayes is bellowing out the play-by-play of their ten-minute interaction from like, last February.

“I didn’t know you were such a fan,” Nolan says, when Hayes has wound down.

“I guess, yeah,” says TK, like he’s cool, like he’s a person who does not own four different Flyers sweaters (that all have _Patrick_ lettered across the shoulders) and who has not attended enough games for the last three years that, okay, he might as well just buy the fucking partial season tickets from that super-thirsty rep.

“Let me know if you ever want me to leave you tickets or anything,” Nolan tells him, and TK mumbles something grateful but equivocal as his brain short-circuits again. He manages to say something about needing to go find his buddy, tells Joel Farabee and Kevin Hayes and _Nolan Patrick_ good luck in their season opener against Boston. Gets the fuck out of there, attaches himself to Lawson’s side like an _aggressive little limpet_ (Law’s words, not TK’s).

A few minutes later, catches _Kevin Hayes_—to be clear, Kevin _fucking_ Hayes—just…looking at him, from across the room, with a considering kind of expression on his face.

That’s it, that’s officially as much as he can take.

“Get the fuck in the car or your ass is on SEPTA,” he tells Lawson, and means it.

One week later, he has an email.

From Nolan Patrick.

In his inbox.

Kess hears him yell, and looks up from her computer. They share an office, a glorified closet off the basketball gym that’s always overflowing with bouncy balls and cones and yoga mats from TK’s Young Yogis Club.

“God, what,” she asks.

“I,” he says. “I can’t talk.”

She coughs out something that sounds like _yeah fucking right_.

“I can’t breathe,” he says. “I can’t deal with this. Kess, I need to give you a student.”

“I thought you liked your kids this year, as you fucking should,” she says, suspiciously. Kess managed to get both of the known agents of chaos in third grade (twins who _clearly_ have undiagnosed learning differences, and TK is _not_ a doctor and his opinion is _not_ based in medical fact, but he would put actual money from his actual salary on ADHD for both of them) (which is fine, obviously, but they need a treatment plan that isn’t their parents telling the school to _try harder_) (TK had them last year and he does not have time for parents who don’t believe in supporting their children, if their children do not turn out exactly the way they’d wanted)_ and_ the fifth grader with a deeply, deeply over-involved mom who is, in fact, the daughter of a U.S. Senator.

“The student is fine,” he wheezes.

“Oh, parent trouble?” she asks, probably fresh off answering eighteen emails about Pennsylvania’s junior senator’s grandchild.

“Ye-e-es.” He pauses, covers his face with his hands. Peeks through his fingers at his screen. It’s still displaying the 27 unread emails that have been sent to travis.konecny@rittenhouse.org since 4:30pm yesterday. Including the ticking time bomb from npatrick@flyers.nhl with the extremely threatening subject line, _Tickets for Pens game_.

Kess kicks a soccer ball out of her way to come lean over his shoulder. Sucks in a breath. “Teeks. Why is someone trolling you about your love for Nolan Patrick. That’s just, rude.”

“It’s,” he says, and she elbows him out of the way and opens the email.

Reads it. He watches her face change.

“Holy shit,” she says. “_Nolan Patrick_ has a _secret kid_?” Then, “How?” and “_How_ did you not _tell_ me this, you _traitor_,” and by the end of the wrestling match immediately following this sentence, she has emailed npatrick@flyers.nhl to indicate that he, Travis Konecny, would love to accept two tickets to the marquee game in Pennsylvania hockey.

“It’s still probably fake, though,” she says.

“I don’t think it’s fake,” he answers. “It’s just like, horrible.”

“There’s some good news, though.”

“What,” he asks her.

“I’m going to see the Penguins smash the Flyers,” Kess answers. “Unless it’s fake, which it definitely is.”

“You _cannot wear a Pens jersey_,” TK yells, fully overcome with emotion and fixating on like, the least important part of this conversation. Except that it’s not. “I will _kill you_. I will email the Senator’s daughter that you are _targeting_ her _child_. I will say, out loud, in a staff meeting, that you told the field hockey team _winning is the only thing that matters_.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “Because the tickets are definitely fake, anyway.”

Unfortunately the tickets are not fake, and she wears a Pens jersey. And it’s even worse than TK could have imagined, because they are. Like. _Right_ up on the glass. Right next to the Flyers bench.

“Jesus,” Kess says. “Is Patrick worried that you’re gonna flunk his kid, or what.”

“No,” Travis says into his beer, miserably. “She’s great, actually. Fantastic body awareness.”

So he’s sitting there, still wearing Lawson’s too-big Lindros sweater (next to Kess in a Crosby jersey) (he would like to die) (please), and hoping that he can kind of—scrunch himself down far enough that no one can see him. _No one_ being Nolan Patrick.

It turns out that Patrick isn’t the one he should have been worried about, though. Hayes spots them and starts yelling, something about _Patty hey come look at this fucking traitor_ but grinning like there’s no hard feelings.

Kess yells back, “Thanks for the tickets, sorry you’re gonna lose!” and TK has to sit up at that, chip in a “Shut up, the Pens suck!” which is, okay, about the best he can do because there is Nolan Patrick, swinging up behind Hayes and leaning on his shoulder. He smiles, halfway, lifts his stick in a salute.

“Oh, _dreamy_,” Kess sighs at TK, who is nervously waving back. “Hey, Patrick!” she yells. “TK wants a puck!”

He flips one up off the ice on the end of his stick, juggles it a few times, then snaps it up over the glass. Kess elbows a teenager out of the way to grab it, because TK has kind of—gotten stuck: staring at _Nolan Patrick_ who is—smiling at him, kind of, or something, or maybe he’s smiling at Kess’s antics, but whoever he’s smiling at, he looks—happy, like he’s _pleased_, cheeks all flushed from his warmup, getting chirped by Hayes for something that makes him blush harder, before the two of them skate away.

“Holy shit,” TK says. “I think Nolan Patrick thinks you’re—hot?”

He doesn’t usually think of Kess as like, a sexual being. But she’s petite and athletic, with a big smile and lots of very shiny blonde hair, and even if she is never going to be TK’s thing (to his mother’s eternal regret), he can totally see how she would be _someone’s_ thing.

Kess makes a face, though. Laughs it off, throws the puck at his head. “That’s not the vibe I got, Teeks.”

“What other vibe is there,” he asks.

“Let me think,” she says, like he’s unbearably slow; but he never does find out what she thinks, because the game is starting and they’re both too serious about the Philadelphia vs. Pittsburgh rivalry to let a minor thing like thirst distract them.

The Flyers win—easily, because whatever Kess may have fooled herself into believing, the Pens do, in fact, suck ass—and they’re getting up to go, when an usher waves them down. TK feels the reflexive surge of panic he always feels around authority figures, based on a childhood mostly spent trying to escape the consequences of his actions and the subsequent years trying to rehabilitate his self-image—what if the tickets _were_ fake after all, what if he’s about to be barred from the Farg _forever_ for sitting with someone wearing a Sidney Crosby jersey—but instead the usher utters the truly astounding sentences, “Kevin Hayes would be happy to have you come down and say hello, if you want. Both of you, I guess,” and the audible sneer directed towards Kess is what makes TK understand that this is an actual offer that is being extended to him in his actual life.

What TK wants to say is something cool, like “Oh, I’m sorry, please tell Kevin Hayes that we would have loved to, but we have a thing that we must go to,” but instead he makes a kind of garbled “yes?” noise that is half vocalization and three-quarters awkward facial expression. Because the bizarro world that he has inhabited since Nolan Patrick and his secret kindergartener walked into his gym is not (quite) enough to overcome twenty-five years of obsession with the Philadelphia Flyers.

They follow the usher through the Farg—Kess returning fire on a few chirps along the way—until they’ve gone through a few doors secured by card-swipe, and they’re in the carpeted anteroom outside the dressing rooms that TK recognizes from a hundred Flyers Instagram posts about post-game visits from veterans, or first responders, or kids with cancer, only this time it’s just—him and Amanda Kessel. (In a Penguins jersey.) (He’ll never get over this betrayal.)

“They’re going to make you take that sweater off when they do the Instagram post about supporting local teachers,” he says.

“Good thing I wore my hottest bra, then,” she shoots back.

“I’m sure Nolan Patrick will love it.”

She makes a face. “Unlike some people, I’m not cut out to be a WAG.”

TK shoves her, because there is a time and a place where it is appropriate for her to chirp him about how he got drunk at the after-party for the staff holiday party last year, and spent a full ten minutes monologuing about how he would be a really awesome hockey WAG. _I love kids, and I know how to cook, and I have good abs, and I would never get mad about going fishing_, he had told her, with a lot of blurry earnestness. _I could get really into taking lots of pictures of the three rescue Labs we are going to adopt_, and she’d laughed and asked when he was going to get his blond extensions put in and learn to walk in high heels.

And TK will admit that this was a chirpable moment in his life, but like: _not right now, okay_.

So of course, that’s the moment Kevin Hayes and Nolan Patrick walk in. Nolan first, Kevin kind of—shepherding him from the back. There’s a surge of noise—music, yelling—from the dressing room behind them, and holy shit, _Kevin Hayes and Nolan Patrick_ are walking out of a dressing room celebration after beating the _Pens_ to say hello to _them_.

TK wants to hide. Unfortunately the only thing to hide behind is Kess, and while he’s certainly not the tallest guy in the room he is _certainly_ still bigger than Amanda Kessel.

“Great game,” he manages to say, to Nolan Patrick’s right shoulder.

“Thanks,” Nolan says. He’s bright red all over, hair still damp from the showers, wearing a t-shirt and basketball shorts and slides. TK has never in his entire life seen a more perfect human being. “It was a team effort.”

“Shut up, Patty!” Hayes yells—which seems to be his only volume—and hooks him around the neck. “Ya killed it out there, kid.”

“Didn’t score,” he mumbles.

“Yeah but you had great puck possession, and absolutely crushed it on the PK, and that blocked shot in the first—gnarly. Just not your night for the lucky bounces, but you were really keeping those fucking Pens d-men busy,” TK’s mouth says, before he remembers that he is talking _to_ Nolan Patrick and not _to_ Lawson Crouse _about_ Nolan Patrick.

“Um, yeah, thanks,” Nolan mumbles at his feet. “We were just trying to get pucks deep.”

Hayes elbows him, hard. “Patty! Use your fucking words, man. Not talking to reporters!”

Nolan shoots him an icy blue death glare and goes redder. TK has never been so attracted to another person. He is physically unable to do anything but stare at the red-on-white pattern of Nolan’s flush shading down his cheeks.

Kess comes to the rescue. “Thanks for the tickets.”

“Patty’s pleasure, man. But we gotta talk about your taste in girlfriends if there’s ever gonna be a repeat,” Hayes says, laughing and releasing Nolan’s neck to slug TK in the arm for the third time (which is, in fact: a trip). “A _Pens_ fan? Really? Thought you had better taste than that, bud.”

“Oh, um, we’re not,” TK tries, and fails.

Kess rescues him again. He would maybe owe her, except that he just gave her a very fancy seat at a hockey game. “We work together. You’re looking at the Rittenhouse Friends Lower School P.E. department.”

“Addie’s in good hands, eh?” Hayes shakes Nolan’s shoulders. “Hey, do you ever need like, guest speakers or anything?”

TK may die. It looks like Hayes may join him beyond the veil, because Nolan is looking frankly _murderous_, jaw clenched and eyes narrowed. “_Hayesie_,” he says, shoving his arm off his shoulders. “I think they’ve got it under control, man.”

“Oh, no, we always love to have folks come in who can talk about all the great experiences kids can have through sports,” Kess says, with a specific kind of wide-eyed innocence that TK has learned to associate with getting conned into extra shifts of pickup and dropoff duty.

“Awesome,” _Kevin_ fucking _Hayes_ says to Kess, and then—worst of all—they _exchange contact information_.

TK and Nolan just stand there, watching this betrayal occur in front of their very eyes; except that TK doesn’t think he can be around Nolan without still watching him, a little bit, because of his jawline and his shoulders and the way his hair has started to dry against his neck—so TK doesn’t miss it when he sees that Nolan is looking at him, too. Sideways out of one blue eye, until he notices TK noticing him, and then he looks down at his slides again.

“I don’t,” TK says, in the car. “I don’t understand.”

Fortunately Kess is driving, because TK is fully incapable of functioning. He has spent too much time in close proximity to Nolan Patrick in the last two weeks; and he has a bruise from what appears to be a Kevin Hayes dude-bro-punch of affection; and he just doesn’t understand anything that has been happening in his life, since the secret child of a certain Flyers center walked into his gym.

“To be totally honest,” Kess answers, “I don’t know what the fuck that was, either.” She shoots a grin at him from the driver’s side of the car. “I’m super interested to find out, though. And you know it’s good biz for us to make nice with the super-rich guys—like half of that team is gonna have kids in school in the next few years, if they don’t already. And we always need to shill for tickets and shit for the silent auction.”

“Don’t we have enough athletes’ kids already, though,” he asks, desperately. It can get tricky at the intersection of a Quaker school’s values, and a Pro Bowler’s interest in his daughter getting a field hockey scholarship to college. TK’s glad he only coaches middle school soccer and baseball; things are more intense in high school. He likes the middle schoolers, though, likes thinking he has a chance to shape them into the kind of people he wishes he’d had on his high school teams. And middle schoolers are so delightfully weird, anyway. He wants to give them all hugs and tell them it will be better in six years, then make them run wind sprints until they’re too tired to have feelings anymore.

“Never enough talent in the pipeline for taking down Cherry Hill,” she says. “I need some of those hockey reflexes, okay.” Kess coaches softball and field hockey, and also a girls’ youth ice hockey team through a local nonprofit. She’s a very busy woman and TK is in awe of her all of the time, except for when she’s being awful. Like now. “It probably won’t come to anything, anyway,” she continues, then takes pity on him and they talk about football the rest of the way home.

Spoiler alert, it comes to something.

“You are like, really in your feelings about this,” Law says over the coffee pot, the morning that Kevin Hayes and Nolan Patrick of the goddamned Philadelphia Flyers are making a school outreach visit to Rittenhouse Friends. Hayes donated shit to the school’s silent auction fundraiser, too, so maybe _he’s_ in love with Kess. Or needs a tax write-off.

TK’s head hurts. “I just can’t be normal around him,” he whines, pouring coffee into his Penn State Education mug. “It’s like my brain just turns into moosh and starts dribbling out of my ears and I either can’t talk, or I can’t stop talking.”

“Oh so, a normal day,” Lawson says sagely, nodding his blond head.

TK throws the lid of his travel mug at him. “Don’t _act_ like I didn’t have to hear you freaking out about how often was too often to text to Claire for like, a month.”

“Yeah, only Claire’s hot, though.”

“Shut up!” TK yells, reflexes kicking in from years of fighting with Law over Nolan Patrick: _actually the hottest Flyer_ or _is your ass just thirsty for big pale Canadians_. “Don’t insult my man!”

“Kevin Hayes?” he jokes, and pitches the lid back.

TK gags. “I would _never_.”

“Maybe _Hayesie _is in love with you. Maybe he wants to _kiss_ you, maybe he wants to _hold_ you,” Law warbles, picking up his mug and grabbing his backpack off the counter. “Maybe he wants to make hyper little rat babies with Boston accents with you,” he continues, and TK is just: done, okay. He kind of—screams, and launches himself at Lawson, but unfortunately Law has a head start and manages to slam the door to their apartment shut in his face.

He hits it, hard.

“Ouch, you piece of shit!” he yells through it, Lawson’s parting cackle trailing away down the stairs. “If I get a black eye I’m going to fucking _kill_ you!”

Law texts back in 30 seconds, _right u have to look pretty enough to make Patty blush!!_ 😍 and it turns out that TK _would_ rather be chirped about Kevin Hayes, actually. Kevin Hayes doesn’t have a secret baby (and if he does, Kess can have her); looking at Kevin Hayes has never made Travis _feel things_, tense and hot and nervous, admiration for his skill and how he throat-punched a migraine disorder to get back to the highest levels of the NHL. How he plowed through the playoffs last year like a fucking machine, one lucky bounce against the Habs away from leading the Flyers back to the Stanley Cup Final.

And, also, straight-up _thirst_, because TK’s type has always been big and moody and no good for him. He was a goner from the first time he heard Nolan mumble “shit” on live TV in a postgame presser.

TK knows it’s pointless. Worse than, really, now that he’s teaching Nolan Patrick’s actual kid in his actual gym class.

But there’s still some stupid, pathetic part of him that’s _hurting_ about this. When Nolan was on his TV, or an occasional autograph table or fan event, he was _safe_. It was okay for TK to imagine meeting him, saying something funny and making him laugh (because someone really needs to), catching his eye and swapping numbers and then, whatever, going ice skating down by the river in December and flying somewhere tropical for the All-Star break. Feeling bulletproof, tucked under Nolan’s arm.

And yeah, sure, sex. However Nolan would want it, TK’s not picky. Sometimes he thinks about Nolan holding him down, how it would feel to push up against those _shoulders_, that _body_; sometimes it’s the other way around, TK doing everything he can think of to see how far down Nolan’s chest his blush can spread. Talking dirty, saying some real nasty shit, making this big, bad NHL player flush red all over and come crying on his cock.

It’s pathetic that giving up on that daydream world hurts, somewhere in his chest and in an achy place behind his eyes. TK _knows_ it’s bad, knows it makes him sound like a sad fucking gay loser from Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, looking at the posters thumb-tacked to the walls of his bedroom and fucking _praying_ that someone will come make it all better.

But it’s true, and there’s nothing he can do about it but pick up the pieces and move on.

He’s good at that, actually.

He’s had to be.

So TK leans over the kitchen sink for a few breaths, splashes some cold water on his face. Brushes his teeth. Finishes getting dressed, his normal uniform of a Rittenhouse t-shirt and half-zip and a snapback that will be facing forward (per the dress code established by the head of the P.E. department) when he walks through the school doors, and will be backwards by first bell (because she’s in the Upper School and there’s no way she’ll ever know).

And if some fucking stupid misguided bullshit nonsense notion makes him pull on his favorite track pants, the ones from an expensive store he never lets himself go to, the ones that make his ass look “absurd,” to quote Claire—well. Fuck it.

He grabs his backpack and he goes to work.

Kess is the one who actually organized the visit from Your Philadelphia Flyers, so TK doesn’t really have to do much other than show up, do crowd control, and try to act like a human being. They’ll be there for an hour, talking about—honestly, TK has no idea. He kind of blacks out for the first part, right around the time Nolan Patrick is shaking his hand and mumbling_ good_ _morning_ at him. Because they make eye contact, and his palm is smooth and warm, and Nolan goes a little bit pink for no apparent reason before he’s ducking back behind Hayes and going up to the front of the gym to talk about like, life lessons or overcoming adversity or teamwork or TK has literally no idea, actually, because for better or for worse one of his less-developed kindergarteners has an urgent need to go to the bathroom.

It’s a nice day, crisp and cold in late October, and after the bathroom emergency has been resolved and the life lessons have drawn to a conclusion Hayes asks the kids, “Who wants to go outside?” and they all bounce up, cheering. He’s just as good at getting elementary schoolers riled up as he is at pumping up a locker room full of professional athletes.

“You go in goal, we’ve got this,” Kess tells him, and dives into the kids clustered around Hayes, getting shown how to hold hockey sticks. The head of the P.E. department has shown up by this point, and TK is sneakily trying to turn his hat back around without looking like he’s turning his hat back around—so it takes him a minute to realize that instead of being nice to him, Kess is actually torturing him. Because they’ve got two goals set up, right next to each other, and who should be in the second one but Nolan Patrick.

He’s kneeling down, talking to Adeline. Their faces are like two serious blue-eyed mirrors; then all of a sudden she’s crying, big tears leaking down the sides of her face.

Nolan freezes, looks halfway panicked.

TK’s swooping in before he’s even realized he’s moving. “Hey, what’s going on over here?” he asks, in what Kess calls his everything-is-just-fine-actually fake-out-liar voice.

Addie shakes her head, crosses her arms over her chest. She’s still crying quietly, lower lip quivering.

“Hey Addie,” TK says, kneeling and holding out a hand. “It looks like you’re a little stressed out, yeah?”

She nods, focusing her eyes on him instead of Nolan.

“It’s probably a lot, seeing your dad,” and his stomach turns over when he says that, but his voice doesn’t waver, “here at school, right?”

“Yeah,” she says, in her quiet little voice, darting a look over at Nolan. He looks—actually kind of stricken. She grabs onto TK’s hand, though, and he tries a smile.

“Want to stay over here with your dad, and help us play goalie?”

She thinks about it, chewing on her lower lip. “Will you stay too, Coach K?”

“Yeah, of course,” he says easily. “We’re all gonna work together, right? ‘Cause goalies always need good backup.”

“Just like Carter and Mr. Brian,” Nolan offers. Which, actually, kind of kills TK, right in his vulnerable little heart—Addie calling the Flyers goaltending team Carter and _Mr. Brian_, although he guesses Brian Elliott is distinguished enough in age to merit a mister. TK doesn’t even know how he’s still hanging on at this point.

So they play goalie, as Hayes and Kess get the kids lined up to take turns shooting. TK and Addie are in one goal, Nolan’s in the other, and it’s—okay. It’s fun, actually, doing all kinds of theatrical dives and _just barely_ missing most of the shots from the kids, while Hayes narrates the play-by-play in his loud Boston accent.

“You’re a _really_ bad goalie,” Addie tells him after a while, eyes narrowed to judgmental blue slits.

“Oh yeah?” he answers. “Let’s see if you can do any better,” and he should absolutely have known not to say that because once he steps out of the goal and gets out of her way, she puts on a clinic in five-year-old shot blocking. Hayes is losing his mind, and Kess is trying not to laugh when she consoles the kids who suddenly stopped scoring, and Nolan is suddenly the more popular shooting line by a country mile.

“Daddy’s bad, too,” she observes. “Do you think he needs help?” Hayes cackles as TK says that the only way her dad will get any better is if they let him practice, and Nolan’s trying to keep a straight face and mostly failing, and then one of the first graders of one of the Phillies batting coaches nails him right in the face. TK can sympathize; that kid’s got an _arm_, apparently even mediated by a hockey stick. TK’s been on the wrong end of it a few times by now.

“I think your dad needs your help now, Addie,” TK says, and she all but shoves Nolan out of the way to take his place between the pipes.

Nolan’s still trying not to smile, even while he’s kind of wincing and there’s a giant red mark from the ball on his cheek.

“Kid’s gonna be in the MLB,” TK offers, forgetting to be weird for a second. “He’ll tell ya any day of the week.”

“_Ouch_, shit,” Nolan mumbles, then looks stricken. “_Fu_—I mean.” He shuts his mouth. Comes up with, “Fudge?”

“It’s okay, no tiny little ears could hear you over Hayes yelling.” Hayes is ranting something about _and leading Vezina Trophy candidate Adeline Patrick_ and then screaming when she makes a stop, arms over his head like it’s the playoffs and not like, a Tuesday morning on Practice Field B with grades K and 1.

“He’s so loud,” Nolan says, rubbing at his cheek. “Always.”

“You need ice for your face, or anything,” TK offers.

Nolan looks offended. “Think I can handle it.”

“Not trying to like, insult your manhood there,” he says. “Just don’t want to mess up that pretty face,” he says, because it’s a joke he’d make to anyone; literally anyone, and he’s just starting to get mortified that he said it to _Nolan Patrick_, when he realizes that Nolan’s blushing again, looking down at his sneakers and mumbling something too low for TK to hear. “Sorry, what?” because if Nolan is about to report him for unprofessional side comments and ask to move Addie to Kess’s class, he’d rather know now than later.

“I said,” Nolan says, “I’m not pretty.”

TK’s struck dumb. “Uh, sure, bud,” he manages, and then suddenly they’re kind of—arguing. Just like, low-key chirping, real G-rated shit. Nolan’s still blushing; TK’s wondering when he’s going to wake up from this extremely specific dream world.

It gets worse when TK realizes Hayes is _staring_ at them with a, a fucking…_smirk_?

And worse again when Nolan sees where TK’s looking, and flushes crimson. Like, the darkest blush TK has ever seen stain those pretty, pale cheeks, and he’s watched a lot of Flyers games and a lot of interviews.

“Oh-kay,” TK says. “I’m gonna…yeah. Go help Coach Kessel. Over there.”

“Hey, before you go,” Nolan says, words coming out in this rapid-fire mumble. “I just wanted to say, like—thanks. This hasn’t been the, whatever, easiest transition for Addie, but she’s having a really good experience at school so far.”

“Don’t give me the credit,” TK tells him. “Her lead teacher’s a total rock star.”

Nolan’s eyes flick up from where they’ve been hovering, around the vicinity of TK’s shoulder. “She really likes gym, though. She says you do the best elephant impressions.”

“Shut up,” TK says. “She _should_ be excited to see my tiger, but we haven’t gotten that far in the alphabet yet.”

“Oh, yeah?” Nolan’s trying to smother a smile.

“Best tiger impression in the Philadelphia metro, bud,” TK confirms. “I’m a legend.”

“I thought you’d only been teaching for three years.”

“It’s so good, my legendary status was fast-tracked. When you see a master at work—” TK shrugs, trying not to let the gears of his brain get stuck on the fact that he is living in a world where Nolan Patrick _knows things_ about him. He imagines Nolan reading his teacher bio in the packet that gets sent home with all the kindergarten families, or looking it up on the website. Of course he would; he’d want to know who was teaching his kid, like any parent. That’s why TK has to update his stupid little paragraph-long bio every June (and try to keep Kess from making any embarrassing changes to the draft before it gets submitted). But it’s not like Nolan’s interested in TK, really.

“Maybe Addie will do a reenactment.”

“I’m sure her version will be great. She gets really into it.”

“She loves animals,” Nolan says, looking down again. “She misses her dog, back in Winnipeg.”

If TK thinks about this conversation, he will die. Lie down on this turf field, and die, so instead of thinking he talks. It’s both a skill and a liability. “Oh, yeah? That’s always tough, having to lose a pet. I actually cried when I got to college and realized I wasn’t gonna be able to hug my dog again until Thanksgiving.”

“We might get one,” Nolan mumbles. “It’s just, a lot to take on. It’s already a lot,” he clarifies.

“You could get a cat,” TK offers. Again, he cannot allow himself to think about Nolan Patrick facing the demands of single parenthood, or he will die.

Nolan looks comically offended. “_No_.”

“Hamsters? Rabbit? Rat? Wait, I know: ferret.”

“What the fu—heck. I’m not getting my kid a _rat_.” He mumbles something about _Philly already has enough of them running around the streets_, but TK is already onto his next great idea.

“Lizard? Snake? Ooh, or the seventh-grade science teacher has some of those Madagascar hissing cockroach things.”

He shudders. “You’ve got really bad taste in pets.”

“Pony,” TK says decisively. In his extensive professional experience with five-year-old girls, _pony_ is the trump card.

“Maybe in a few years.”

“Hedgehog now, pony later,” TK decides. “There. Perfect strategy. Fail safe, bud.”

“I guess we’re getting a dog,” Nolan grumbles. “Seems way less complicated.”

“Tell her I was the one that convinced you. I deserve the credit.”

“No,” Nolan says, flat and unemotional, and TK would, actually, die for him and his tiny secret daughter and the fat, fuzzy golden retriever puppy he can already imagine toddling around the npatrick19 Instagram account.

“Hey, Patty!” Hayes yells (because he’s always yelling). He’s got Addie balanced on one hip; Kess is directing the kids to pick up all the balls and sticks. “Time to wrap it up, bud. These little monsters need to get to reading circle.”

“Oh, god,” Nolan mumbles. “_Reading circle_. I’m supposed to like, _lead_ that next week. I don’t even know what that _is_.”

Another thing TK is not thinking about right now, or possibly ever, if he is smart enough to spare himself the emotional anguish: Nolan Patrick, surrounded by his daughter’s kindergarten class, leading reading circle.

“It’s no biggie,” TK assures him. “You just like, pick a book, and you make some snacks, and you show up and read and it’s cute and the kids are into it, unless you pick a bad book, so. Be smart about that, bud. And if you can’t pick a good book, make sure your snack game is on point.”

“I don’t know how to do any of that.”

“Did you just say that you don’t know how to _read_.”

Nolan glares at him. TK feels it all the way down to his toes. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Look. The first step is to admit that you have a problem.”

“I don’t have a _problem_. Because I know how to _read_.”

“I’m willing to help you out here,” TK tells him (in fact, he is willing to do a lot more than _help_) (in fact, one day, perhaps, someday in the future, he will learn how to think before he speaks, and he will spare himself a lot of agony). “I am like, the most popular reading circle leader at Rittenhouse. I do a special guest appearance in March and it is fully: rave reviews. Five stars. Standing room only. And as a special favor, since you’re new to the Rittenhouse community, I will send you some tips.”

“I don’t need your help,” Nolan growls, even though he was, in fact, just begging TK for help like twenty seconds ago.

“Fine. But don’t come crying to me when you have ten kids whining at you because you picked out a boring book.”

Nolan firms up his jaw. “It can’t be that hard.”

Hayes yells something again, and it is, in fact, time to get the little monsters to reading circle, so they put the goals away and troop down to the kindergarten class. TK is quarantining himself from certain people, but he sees the expression on Nolan’s face when he is confronted by all of the tiny furniture; the squashy pillows; and the assortment of interactive props and activities; the spread of immaculate, thematic foods (all calligraphed with ingredients and allergens) that the mom of the day has produced. If TK’s help had been desired, he could have told Nolan_, chill, man, everyone knows she’s super extra ‘cause she has an MBA from Wharton but she doesn’t work and so all she has to do is pour her energy into competitive stay-at-home-mom gamesmanship_.

But Nolan’s got this, and TK’s being a fully normal person who is not over-invested in one single thing about this situation, so he doesn’t.

The next morning, TK has the following email in his inbox.

From: npatrick@flyers.nhl

To: travis.konecny@rittenhouse.org

Subject: Books

What do kids even like.

He grins. Imagines Nolan glaring down at his phone as he composed the email, like he’s been personally betrayed by Amazon or his local Barnes and Noble or wherever. Shoots back, _Dunno, man, I’m just the gym teacher. Thought you said it wasn’t gonna be hard._

Immediately has to lock his computer and walk away from his desk, and hope the Rittenhouse IT overlords aren’t reading his email. Because there is a certain tone of professionalism that he is expected to uphold in written communications with parents, and the words “dunno” and “gonna” do not meet it. Neither does a tone of lowkey mocking.

“What’s wrong with your face,” Kess asks him, all suspicious.

“Nothing,” he says. “Hey, have you seen the giant parachute?”

He pulls up his email on his phone on the break between first and second periods. npatrick@flyers.nhl has written, _It’s not hard, I just don’t read a lot of books for kindergarteners_.

There is absolutely a chirp to be made there, and TK would like recognition for the fact that he does not make it. Instead he says, _When in doubt, just go to a bookstore or library and ask for a recommendation_. _Tell them you need a good book to take to your kid’s reading circle. They’ll point ya towards the good stuff_.

He figures that’s that, especially when he hasn’t heard back from Nolan by the end of the day. And it’s not like he’s checking his email more frequently than he usually would, or anything.

Fine, shut up, he totally is, but he’s supposed to be responsive to parent concerns. And it’s in like, service to the kindergarten community: nobody wants to have to deal with a parent who brings a boring book that the kids don’t care about listening to. Although TK has said, out loud, using his words, _I would let Nolan Patrick read me an entire Athletic article about advanced hockey statistics_, he has learned better than to expect a classroom of kindergarteners to bring that level of focused appreciation to _anything_.

But it’s fine, TK has referred this out to the specialists and Nolan’s got it under control. TK goes to soccer practice; hits the gym; goes home; makes a stir fry for dinner.

Law’s over at Claire’s again. Their apartment is quiet, except for the pop and grumble of their ancient radiators, and the car horns from outside their windows, and the sound of the neighbor’s TV. The Flyers are hosting the Panthers, so TK turns up the volume on his illegal stream (because cable is for people who don’t have student loans) loud enough to drown it out.

The apartment is still quiet, though. Empty.

_We should get a dog_, he texts Law, instead of thinking about how he’s feeling. He thought he’d worked hard enough at the gym to dull off his edges, but apparently not.

_Absolutely not_, Law sends back immediately. Ten seconds later, _Travis Konecny get the FUCK off PetFinder_.

But it’s too late. TK sends him links to twelve adoptable dogs during the first intermission of the game, and six more during the second.

The Flyers hammer the Panthers 6-2. Nolan picks up two goals and an assist.

For the first time in his life, TK doesn’t watch his post-game interview. Closes his laptop, and takes a shower, and does his dishes so Law won’t bitch at him the next time he comes home.

The next morning he has another email from npatrick@flyers.nhl, timestamped 12:02am. Travis—wasn’t expecting that. Thought he did his duty. Can’t think about Nolan emailing him the night after a big win; would have thought he’d be out with the boys, knocking back a few beers to celebrate while his mom watches Addie.

But there it is, sitting in his inbox.

_My mom asked me to show her how I was gonna hold the book_, he wrote. _I picked it up and she laughed at me and I still don’t know what I did wrong._

Travis can’t resist. _Oh, buddy. Has no one ever told you there’s a technique?_

_No_. That pops up in his inbox within a few seconds, and TK feels a buzz of nervous energy, fizzing down from his shoulders to his toes. He imagines Nolan holding his phone at the exact moment that TK’s looking at his computer, tapping those two letters out and hitting send.

_It’s okay_, he writes back. _Like I said, just make sure your snack game is awesome to compensate_.

_I was just gonna ask my meal service to make some cookies. But now I feel like that’s not good enough. That was some gourmet shit._

_She’s next level_, TK clarifies. _Most people bring like, one thematic snack. And the right stuff for the kids with allergies or dietary restrictions._

_What the fuck is a “thematic snack”_

TK flat-out grins at his computer. He can feel the Nolan Patrick bitchiness like, _rolling_ off that email. He answers, _Like, if you’re reading If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, you would bring cookies. If You Give a Moose a Muffin, it’s muffins._

_Are those book titles I don’t know if I want Addie around moose_

_She’s Canadian. Isn’t that like, in her blood?_

_Moose are large, unpredictable, and aggressive_, writes Nolan Patrick, who has absolutely been to a wilderness safety talk in his day. _Kids shouldn’t be giving them muffins_.

_What about a dog, though_, TK says before he thinks about it. He scrolls through his phone and finds the links he sent to Lawson the night before. _Like this one_. She’s a cutie, an older shepherd/lab mix whose interests are “napping, snuggling, and giving kisses.”

_It kills me to say this but we need something small enough to fly in the cabin._

Jesus fucking Christ: Nolan Patrick and his tiny daughter and a tiny designer dog. This is, in fact, the straw that breaks TK’s back, and he lets out a wordless yowl of distress. Kess looks up from her lesson planning and says, “What in the actual hell, Teeks.”

“Nolan Patrick and his tiny daughter and a tiny designer dog,” he says.

She squints. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me.” Hers is _such_ a suspicious nature, but he’s saved by the literal bell.

He goes and teaches some third graders how to hold tennis racquets. Then refs a chippy game of fourth-grade soccer (and then helps the kids process and reframe their frustration). Then it’s lunch, and he’s back in the office—Kess has lunch duty today, ha fucking ha—picking at the crusts of his sandwich, and unlocking his computer. The email that undid him is halfway down his inbox now, buried in a flurry of messages about the upcoming Harvest Festival, and updates from the most recent Friends Schools Athletic League planning meeting, and an announcement from the school secretary that there’s a pan of his famous salted caramel brownies in the main office.

TK ignores all of them.

Well, not the one about the brownies, because he is headed for the office _immediately_ after he sends this email. Because he’s going to have some feelings to eat.

The email he sends is, _Look. I’m not saying I’m the best at reading circle—but basically I’m the best at reading circle. So if you want to meet at Barnes and Noble and do a test run (since you don’t have an emotional support chihuahua to practice reading to yet) that’s a thing I’m available for. Just let me know._

TK doesn’t look at his email the rest of the day. Keeps his phone in his pocket. Eats more than his fair share of the brownies, maybe, and gets a judgmental look from the drama teacher. It’s cool; she’s not judging him any more than he’s judging himself. He’s been told all his life he has bad impulse control, but sometimes he manages to surprise even himself.

“Did you see the agenda for the all-school meeting?” Kess asks when he’s getting ready to walk out the door that afternoon. It’s gray, cold, kind of rainy, and he has middle school soccer practice to deal with before he can hit the gym and work himself into oblivion.

“Nope, haven’t been on my email all day.”

“What the hell, you were totally glued to it this morning,” she says suspiciously. “Did someone email you tickets again? Because I’m going to need one of them.”

“No tickets.”

“But yeah, you need to look at your email. For like, work.”

“Ughhh,” he moans. Pulls it up on his phone, is trying hard not to look for anything but the headmaster’s email address, but gets stuck on the name Nolan Patrick. “Kess!” he screeches, once he’s forced himself to open the world’s most terrifying email. “Coach! Amanda! Kessel!”

A couple of his fifth graders glance at him, where they’re dragging net bags full of soccer balls out of the closet. But it’s fine, they’re used to TK making unpredictable noises occasionally.

“This had better be good,” she says.

“It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” he tells her.

“Really,” and she’s got her judgy eyebrow up, which he’s thankfully immune to at this point.

“I am…” He trails off. Swallows; his mouth has gone completely dry. Tries again. “Meeting Nolan Patrick. To help him get ready for his first ever kindergarten reading circle.” He’s looking at her; he knows his eyes are all big and desperate, and then she starts laughing, slugs him in the shoulder and wow, maybe they’ve all been spending too much time with Kevin Hayes, and it’s all just—too much.

“Teeks,” she says, “you know kills me to admit this. But you’re the best damned reading circle volunteer this school has ever seen. So go show your boy how a _real_ man leads a reading circle.”

TK wants to be the kind of person who is going to be cool about this.

But unfortunately, he just is _not_. If he’s excited about things, he’s excited about them, and the people around him are going to know it. Same if he’s nervous, or scared, or affectionate, or vaguely nauseous—or all of those things at once, which is how he is the Sunday he’s supposed to meet Nolan at the Barnes and Noble in Rittenhouse Square.

“Pull yourself together,” Lawson tells him. “Jesus Christ.”

“I can’t,” TK moans. He’s standing in the middle of their apartment’s smaller bedroom, every piece of clothing he owns spread around him. “You know I can’t.”

“I want to be wrong, though.”

“Just tell me what to _wear_,” TK wails.

“You’re the gay one! You tell me!”

“Facetime Claire, I can’t do this.” He throws himself face-first down onto his bed. Turns, pathetically, to look up at Lawson with one eye. “She’s my only hope.”

Claire coaches him into his tightest jeans, and a soft olive-green henley, and allows him to put on his favorite camo jacket as like, a security blanket. She asks that he please wait to put on his dumbass trashy snapback until she’s off the phone, so that she can fool herself into believing he isn’t wearing one.

“It’s not like it matters,” TK says, settling his favorite Penn State snapback on his head. “I don’t know why I’m freaking out.”

“I do,” says Lawson. “But I bet you’re gonna tell me, even if I didn’t already.”

“It’s like,” TK continues, pretending his asshole best friend hadn’t spoken, “I know there’s like, a zero percent chance he would ever be into me. So it really, really doesn’t matter what I look like. I just gotta help him not embarrass himself in front of a bunch of his daughter’s friends. He’s like, just calling in an expert, the same as working with his shooting coach or whatever.”

If Lawson is coughing something like _but you embarrass yourself in front of kindergarteners all the time_, TK isn’t acknowledging it.

Instead, he’s grabbing his phone, and his keys, and he is _going to meet Nolan Patrick_.

By the time he’s driven over to Rittenhouse Square, and parked in the garage at Friends, and freaked out, and walked over to the Barnes and Noble, he’s convinced himself that there’s no way Nolan is actually going to show up. He has more important things to do with his time: the Flyers are playing in Montreal on Tuesday, New Jersey on Wednesday. He’s probably got dry cleaning to pick up, or a cryotherapy session to go to, or video review or playing with his super-cute daughter or—whatever.

So when he sees Nolan Patrick leaning up against the golden tan sandstone of the building—dark gray hoodie, broad shoulders, black beanie pulled low over his forehead and legs for actual days—what he says is, “Wow, I didn’t think there was any way you’d show up.”

Nolan looks up from his phone. There’s a line in between his eyebrows and his eyes are an offended shade of blue. “I said I’d be here.”

“Yeah but like, you probably have important stuff to do. And this is just, well.”

“I’m not fucking this up,” Nolan says. He stiffens his shoulders, stands up straight, and TK is reminded again of how tall he is. “I can do this, okay.”

TK realizes he’s not just talking about the kindergarten class’s reading circle. “Yeah, of course. It’s really not rocket science, man. Way less scary than Carey Price.”

Nolan makes a face and a little snort of contempt, like _Carey who?_ as they head to the children’s section. That’s a fucking mood, too, Nolan against the brightly-colored shelves, dwarfing the child-sized furniture. The shoelaces of his Vans are untied and that makes TK’s fingers itch, whether from an elementary school teacher’s predictive eye for disaster or the idea of getting down to tie them. On the floor, on his knees.

Which is! Fully not a thought he is having in the children’s section of the Rittenhouse Square Barnes and Noble.

“So,” he says brightly, herding Nolan over to the reading corner, “what book did you get?”

He fucking blushes. Mumbles something like, _it was one of my favorites when I was a kid_. So TK is expecting to have to convince this dude not to read a book about youth hockey, but instead he produces Jan Brett’s _The Mitten_ from inside his coat.

“I liked the animals, okay,” he says, defensively.

“Fully support that, man,” TK says, trying very valiantly not to think about a tiny Nolan Patrick tracing his tiny fingers over the illustrations of the fox, and the bear, and the snow-white bunny. “Classic choice. Maybe not like, the most seasonally-appropriate—”

Nolan makes an offended noise. “It would be if we were in Winnipeg.”

“Sorry we don’t have enough snow for your book selection.”

“Just freezing fucking rain,” he bitches, as if a guy from Manitoba gets to complain about the weather in Pennsylvania.

“Okay, tough guy. Whatever you say.” TK rolls his eyes, drops down onto the green-patterned rug. Settles himself cross-legged, leaning back on his palms. “You get the chair.”

Nolan gingerly settles himself onto a tiny yellow plastic chair. His knees are around his ears and the whole effect is basically that of a disgruntled, leggy bumblebee. A bumblebee that, unfortunately, TK would absolutely do.

“Now show me what we’ve got to work with,” TK says, in what he hopes is an encouraging tone of voice.

Nolan glares. Awkwardly holds up the book, at an angle where no child will be able to see one single illustration. Starts to basso mumble his way through, and TK might be willing to listen to three hours of that as ASMR, but kindergarteners—no chance.

TK cracks his mental knuckles, and goes to work.

Twenty minutes later, TK is so frustrated by everything about Nolan James Patrick that he could, actually, scream. Nolan’s jaw is set, he’s glaring ferociously down at the carpet, and honestly, it’s kind of a relief because TK is _fully_ no longer prepared to do him on the floor of the children’s section. This bitch would need to buy him a drink first, at this point. Maybe even dinner. Not like, a fancy dinner, but TK would probably require _at least_ an appetizer before he would be willing to show Nolan how he doesn’t have a gag reflex.

So that’s like, one form of progress.

Even if Reading Circle with Mr. Patrick is still d-o-o-m-e-d.

“You’re doomed, bud,” he says, because he is a realist.

“I am _not_,” Nolan growls.

“Your snack game needs to be impeccable. That’s the only way you’re saving this. You need themed cupcakes at the _very_ least, if you aren’t going to enunciate one _single_ word or let the kids see one _single_ picture. Cookies are not cutting it.”

Nolan throws the book at his head. Having things fly at his face is not an uncommon occurrence in TK’s personal or professional life, so he’s well up to snatching it out of the air.

“You cannot do that at school,” TK tells him. “Jesus Christ, you cannot throw books at children when you get frustrated by how bad you are at reading.”

“There is no possible way,” Nolan says, “that these kids can be more obnoxious than you are.”

“I promise you, they can always find a way to surprise you.”

“Shut up,” Nolan snaps—also not reading circle-appropriate behavior. “You do it, then. Since you’re the _expert_.”

They switch places, and TK has no particular feeling or opinion about seeing Nolan settle onto the floor in front of his knees. Because TK’s busy demonstrating how to hold the book at the proper angle, where to put his fingers so the kids can still see all the illustrations. TK enunciates and TK does the voices, one for Baba and one for Nicki; TK makes all the animal noises, for the mole and the badger and the squeaky little brown mouse. TK lets the suspense build; TK asks Nolan, “And what do you think is going to happen next?” with wide-eyed sincerity, as he points out the bear starting to bumble its way through the border around the page.

Nolan growls, “It bites your fucking head off?” and TK ignores him in favor of asking him to make his best owl noise. Nolan declines.

So TK asks him, “Are you serious about this, or not,” and Nolan glares, and sets his jaw, and tries to murder TK with his icy blue eyes, but that fucker does produce a passable hoot, so. They’re making the right kind of progress.

Twenty minutes later, Nolan has performed a rendition of Jan Brett’s _The Mitten_ that will not bring shame upon TK’s house. He looks like he’s dying, actually dying, blushing bright red and trying to ignore all the well-dressed Rittenhouse Square moms in their Lululemon leggings with their $1,000 strollers giving him soft looks as he hoots and growls and yes, fox-yips his way through the book.

One of the passing moms is a Friends mom—one of the rare ones who’s influential in the PTA, but actually a very kind person. Her middle daughter is in second grade, and she runs up to TK, throws herself at his neck. He catches her with a laugh, lets her tackle him down onto the rug.

“Is your friend a new uncle?” the PTA mom asks, smiling down at TK and Nolan.

“Nope,” TK says cheerfully. “This is Nolan. His daughter just started at Friends. We’re practicing for his first reading circle.”

She blinks for a second. TK can see her calculating ages, and then deciding to let it go. “Well, welcome! I’m the chair of the PTA and we’re always happy to have volunteers. Have you heard about the Harvest Festival yet?”

“Yeah,” Nolan mumbles in the general direction of her kneecaps. “I uh, travel a lot for work. Not sure I’m going to be able to make it.”

“Not a problem, I’m sure your wife can—” She cuts herself off, obviously performing a belated ring check. “Well. I hope we see you and your daughter there!” She collects her offspring and steers them over to the Emerging Readers section.

“Thanks for that.” Nolan’s glaring at him.

“Nah man, you’ll thank me later. She’s great. You want her on your side, controlling the narrative.”

“What.”

“Like, she’s gonna tell everyone in the PTA, _oh, we’ve got a new, young, single dad_, but it’s fine, he’s been spotted in the right bookstore practicing with a quality reading circle mentor. Poor guy travels a lot for work, doesn’t seem to have a wife. Basically, she’s gonna make sure your family doesn’t get blacklisted for not signing up for enough volunteer shifts.”

“What the fuck.”

“I mean,” Travis says, “I don’t think you have a wife? To do your volunteer quota while you’re in, I dunno, Calgary or wherever? It’s a Quaker school, bud. Very strong emphasis on engagement within the school community.”

“Shit,” he grumbles. “I didn’t know there was a like, volunteer quota. And I definitely don’t have a wife.” He pulls off his beanie, scrubs a hand through his hair. It’s long, curling down almost past his shoulders. He’d cut it last season, clipped it up to his jawline, and TK had missed it: he likes it better when it’s longer, and those are the kinds of thoughts he’s not supposed to be having.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he says. It’s inadequate but he doesn’t know what else he has to offer. “You’re gonna get it figured out.”

Nolan makes a bitchy face, this barely-contained little eyeroll and purse of his lips. “That’s what everyone says.”

“Maybe they’re right?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Nolan flips the book shut decisively, unfolds himself up from the bumblebee chair. “Fuck this. I need a drink.”

“So, that’s bye, I guess,” TK says. “Well, I hope things go well? Next week. I guess Addie will let me know how it goes, yeah?”

Nolan shoots him a look of freezing disdain. TK suppresses a shiver, down there on the brightly-colored reading corner rug: there is something in that expression that he wants to dig his fingernails into, scratch at until he’s rattled its natural superiority. “I’m not lame enough to drink by myself.”

“Uh, what,” says TK, because there is no way Nolan Patrick just asked if he wanted to go like, drink a beer with him. TK, drinking a beer, within a two-foot radius of Nolan Patrick, also drinking a beer, when they are, intentionally, drinking those beers _together_ is—too much for his brain to handle, it turns out. So he kind of blacks out a little as he follows the cut of Nolan’s shoulders back out through the bookstore, brain offline and probably babbling about God knows what.

They end up in a craft cocktail bar right across the street from the bookstore. Thank god; TK doesn’t know how many streets he could have managed to cross without getting flattened by an over-aggressive Philly driver, since he is not really doing a great job of paying attention to any part of his surroundings other than Nolan Patrick, and his shoulders, and the way the brown of his hair is curling down against the charcoal-gray of his hoodie.

The bar’s quiet, at least; or maybe that’s not a good thing after all, as Nolan slides into a seat at the far end and TK follows him and then there’s nothing to do but stare down at the menu. There’s tasteful instrumental music playing in the background, not loud enough to bridge the space between them. Nolan’s drumming his fingers against the top of the bar, not quite on the beat, and looking up at all the liquor bottles arranged against the wall. His jawline looks scruffy, and there’s just a hint of color along the tops of his cheekbones.

“Have you been here before?” TK asks, desperately, because he can’t just keep sitting here and, and _looking_ at Nolan. “It looks nice.” It’s not a place he’d ever go to, on his own. He can’t pronounce half the kinds of alcohol in the cocktails, wouldn’t want to drink something containing whatever the hell a smoked ice cube is, even if it didn’t cost $15.

“It’s fine,” he says, redirecting his eyes down towards the drink menu. “G doesn’t live too far away. So Kevin and I would come meet him here, sometimes. G’s a big cocktail guy.” He makes a face, just a quick flicker of one. “I guess I live here now, too.”

“Oh,” TK says. He knows Nolan and Kevin lived together for a pretty long time, in some big penthouse thing with lots of windows. Flyers TV had done a house tour last season. Kevin had been all loud and expansive, expounding about the wine fridge and the private elevator, while Nolan had lurked in the background and popped up with an occasional chirp. Admitted that he liked the view, leaning one shoulder up against the wall of glass in his bedroom. The two of them had seemed close, easy around each other in a way that suggested a lot of practice.

“Bought a house,” Nolan says to the bar. “Finally, I guess.”

“That contract extension must have made it easier,” TK says without thinking. Winces, immediately; but whatever, it’s not like Nolan doesn’t know he follows hockey, didn’t stumble into him at a Flyers team event.

“Whatever.” Nolan dismisses $5 million AAV with the shrug of one broad shoulder. “Yeah, I guess.”

The bartender is at the far end of the bar, acting very politely like she doesn’t know who Nolan is; but that doesn’t stop her from appearing lightning-fast as soon as he glances her way. She’s pretty, blonde and angular like every WAG TK’s ever seen. Nolan barely looks at her as he orders a beer.

“Uh, whatever he’s having,” TK says. Lawson hasn’t gotten him onto the craft beer train, but this place doesn’t have anything else on the draft list, not even Yuengling. Hopefully it costs less than $8. TK’s budget is more hole in the wall dive bar, than glossy copper bar tops with a fancy fucking white flower perched on the end. That plant—orchid, whatever, TK’s not totally without class—wouldn’t last five minutes in his local without someone pouring a beer into it, or knocking it over with a careless elbow. Obviously not something they’re worried about here.

The beers arrive quickly enough that the silence doesn’t have time to drag. TK takes a sip: it’s pale gold, crisp and refreshing against his tongue.

“That doesn’t suck,” he says in surprise.

Nolan gives him a sideways smirk. “I have good taste.”

“I don’t.” TK flashes a shameless grin. “Light beer all day and all night, bud. It’s good enough for me.”

“Yeah, you look like it,” Nolan grumbles, but the way he’s kind of—looking at TK, out of the corner of his eye: it’s kind of—something. Something he’d interpret in a certain kind of way, if he was in a certain kind of bar. Assessing, verging on appreciative.

Obviously TK is hallucinating. Seeing what he wants to see. Of course Nolan is shooting his daughter’s teacher assessing looks: he wants to like, assess his professional competency. “I’ll even fuck with White Claw,” he says immediately, because he has no shame, and also no brain. And like, he _is_ a competent professional, but sometimes he’s tired of _acting_ like it, okay.

Nolan makes a face. “That shit’s all Kevin drank for like, two years.”

“Guess Kevin’s not classy, either.”

“Ugh, definitely not.”

“Are _you_, then?” TK asks him, grinning. “Big upgrade from Winnipeg? Address in Rittenhouse Square, fancy-ass beer? Did that hoodie cost two thousand bucks? Only the finest for Nolan Patrick, yeah?”

Nolan rolls his eyes, doesn’t deign to respond. “You can call me Pat, or whatever. Nobody calls me Nolan.”

“You don’t have to call me Coach Konecny,” TK says, because he’s dumb. So, so dumb.

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to,” Nolan—_Pat_, holy _shit_—mumbles at his beer. And okay, TK’s had some kind of crazy moments where he’s realized he’s interacting with someone from his TV, since he started at Rittenhouse. But this is some _next level shit_. Like, he cares about the Eagles, duh, but he doesn’t have any level of personal investment in the way their Pro Bowl tight end’s teeth are dimpling against his bottom lip. (Maybe his wife’s, though? There is a _very_ short list of women TK would do, but his girl Julie is on it.)

“Everyone just goes with TK, for me. Dunno why, but it’s been my name forever. I only answer to Travis in like, job interviews. Or at the doctor’s office. Or like. Jury duty.”

Pat looks mildly horrified. “_You_ were on a _jury_. Like, for crimes.”

“Uh, just for like, speeding tickets. Low-speed collisions. Like, one day last year? It was super-random,” and then TK’s rambling about his thrilling day in the Philadelphia Municipal Court. Pat listens, with what TK decides is fascination wiping away the horror on his stupidly handsome face. It’s like, not everyone gets to see a glimpse into the inner workings of the Traffic Division without actually getting a traffic citation, right?

“You’ve probably gotten lots of tickets and shit,” TK concludes, “because athletes are like, always speeding and parking illegally.” He’s not going to throw a certain Phillies right fielder under the bus, here, for crimes committed in the pickup line. But TK’s just saying: he knows what he did. And he knows TK saw him do it.

Pat glowers. “I do not.”

TK shouldn’t enjoy poking at him. Really, he should not; he thinks it might be easier, maybe, if he could go back to stammering and hyperventilating, because this way, he might, whatever. _Say something_. Something that’s not appropriate to say to the parent of one of his students; something that’s not appropriate for one of the higher-profile members of the Flyers franchise. TK’s never been good at impulse control, never been good at looking before he leaps. His mom swears he touched the hot stove ten times before he learned to leave it alone.

And Pat’s _right there_, okay. Their bar stools are close enough that TK could press their legs together, slide a hand under the hair curling against the back of his neck. Find out if the place where his jawline meets the delicate curve of his ear smells as good as it looks.

TK wants to get under his skin. Leave a mark.

He’s not going to do anything about it. But there it is.

He tears his eyes off the high slant of Pat’s cheekbone, puts it back on his beer where it belongs. He’s imagining that the air hanging between them feels heavy, weighted. Isn’t imagining the way Nolan’s blushing again, can’t think about it. Knows he’s not going to be able to stop himself from thinking about it, later.

The beer is a fizz of brightness against his tongue. He thinks about that instead. “So,” he says, “what is this shit, anyway? You drink it a lot?” and he acts like he cares when Pat starts running him through the Philly craft beer scene, like he hasn’t heard it from Lawson a hundred goddamned times before.

Well, he does care this time, actually. Because Pat’s talking to him, with his voice, and the movements of his throat, and his fingers against the side of his glass. Licking a little bit of foam off his top lip; blushing again when he sees TK watching him.

They end up staying tucked away at the far end of that fancy bar for like, two hours. TK figures he doesn’t humiliate himself too much, because Pat’s not acting like he wants to go anywhere—TK knows he can be a lot, okay, has had to train himself to look for all of the signs that he should shut up, let the person he’s talking at get on with their day.

He doesn’t see them when they talk about fishing. He doesn’t see them when they talk about growing up in the country. He doesn’t see them when they talk about their favorite childhood dogs, and he doesn’t see them when they lean together over Nolan’s phone, looking at fucking Petfinder. TK argues for the senior dogs with snaggle teeth and chronic health conditions; Nolan stares longingly at the 75-pound retriever mixes, that will under no imaginable circumstances fit under the seat of an airplane.

“Not even in first class,” TK grins. “Not even on a private fucking jet.”

“I could maybe afford a private jet,” Nolan says, like he’s really thinking about it. “Like, for the summer break.”

“Ohh, there you go, being fancy again. Even your dog is too good to fly commercial.”

“Shut up.” Nolan shoves him in the shoulder, like it’s an automatic reflex born of a lifetime in hockey locker rooms. TK shoves back, because he did plenty of time in locker rooms, too. Doesn’t even think about it until he’s feeling hard muscle under his elbow. Then can’t think of anything else but getting settled back onto his own stool, since Pat’s phone is buzzing aggressively on the bar top, and TK cannot—literally fucking can_not_—be noticing the blush that’s stippling its way across the tops of his cheekbones.

“Shit,” Pat mumbles. Swipes at his phone, taps out a quick response. “I gotta go. My mom’s watching Addie.”

“Oh, yeah,” TK says. “For sure.” He fishes out his wallet and throws a credit card down on the bar top.

“I can get your beer.”

“Not a chance.”

“I mean,” Pat’s making a stupid tight-lipped face again, “you basically did me a favor. And then I like, talked your ear off.”

“Uhh, pretty sure I did most of the talking, dude. And your kid’s tuition dollars already basically pay my salary, so.”

“I had no idea private school was so fucking expensive,” he bitches. “Jesus.”

“Sorry it’s cutting into your private dog jet budget,” TK fires back. “Jesus indeed. Your poor fucking kid.”

Nolan laughs. Loudly, like it got startled out of him; head thrown back, the long white column of his throat. “Fuck you, I’m doing my best.”

“Yeah, I _bet_ you are,” TK says, and he means it to be a joke, but it doesn’t quite land. Nolan stops laughing, looks down at his phone again. It’s locked, the screen dark, the fingernail of his thumb a pale curve against the black plastic.

“I am, actually,” he mumbles.

TK nudges him in the ankle with his foot. “Hey, can I tell you something?”

“What,” Nolan growls.

TK can see that he’s bracing himself for another failure of a platitude. So what he says instead is, “I don’t think you _are_ doing your best, actually. Because I just didn’t see the level of commitment to the fox yip that I’m gonna need you to achieve, if you _really_ want to make it at reading circle. And like, bud. That’s parenting 101. Make the fucking animal noises.”

The Flyers pick up four points on the road. Nolan scores against New Jersey, notches two assists against Montreal. He’s having a hell of a season, making that contract look like a bargain. TK’s still wearing the Lindros jersey when he and Law hit one of the bars down on Broad Street for the New Jersey game, though.

He’s thought about Nolan—Pat—a lot, okay. Hasn’t talked about him, though, really, to Lawson or to Kess or to Chase, when they FaceTimed over the weekend. When Lawson asked how it went, TK talks about how lame his animal sounds were; doesn’t explain what they were doing the rest of the time, lets Lawson think he went into the office to wade through some grade updates.

It feels—private, okay. Like a secret he wants to keep cupped in his hands, close to his chest: the timbre of Nolan’s laugh, the angles his legs made under the copper bar top.

It’s stupid.

So, so fucking stupid.

But TK never claimed to be smart.

And it happened; it did, in fact, happen. There’s a $9 charge on his credit card statement, timestamped for three hours after they met outside the Barnes and Noble, from a bar he never would have gone to.

TK knows it’s nothing. Tells himself that, very firmly, at least four times an hour; every other minute during the two games, when he’s watching Nolan’s shoulders carve a swathe through the Habs and the Devs.

But he just can’t keep his stupid, stupid heart from _wanting_. Remembering everything about how Nolan’s hair curled down against the fabric over his shoulders, how close they’d been when the two of them were leaning over his phone, the thrill of startling a laugh out of him; watching him bite his lip to try to smother a smile, when TK was explaining why he should adopt the twelve-year-old Yorkie mix who was blind in one eye, and only needed two subcutaneous injections each day.

How it had been—easy, actually, once TK had gotten himself settled down. Like something had clicked into place, something that had been missing on every stupid date he’d been on in the last two years. There had been those _moments_, okay, that had felt so—weighted.

Pat licking his lower lip, blush firing up against his cheeks, challenging blue eyes.

TK can’t let himself think about it.

Can’t think of anything else, when he gets home from the Devs game and jerks off in the shower. Comes hard, leaning up against the while tile wall and imagining those big shoulders boxing him in, that low voice rumbling against his throat. Soft hands, sharp teeth.

He fucking knows it’s bullshit, okay. Self-delusional impulsive bullshit, the same shit that got him in trouble in high school.

It’s worse, now. He’s older and allegedly wiser. And he really needs to avoid doing something that will end up getting him actually fired from his actual job which he needs to pay his actual bills.

In high school it had just been your garden-variety small-town homophobia. His parents hadn’t even kicked him out; in the end they hadn’t done anything more than be disappointed in TK and his _choices_. Loudly at first, then more quietly, as his senior year ground on and he’d gritted his teeth and kept coming home with bloody knuckles. Split lips, a few black eyes. Nothing permanently damaging: TK was a scrapper to begin with and he had a gun rack in his hand-me-down Chevy pickup, the same as every other redneck seventeen-year-old in Jersey Shore. And he had Law, who was huge even back then, solidly and unswervingly fighting in his corner; who had reacted to TK getting outed with a roll of his eyes and a _dude, did you honestly think I didn’t know you were gay? I watched your thirsty ass pant over Trevor Cohick every goddamned day of 4H camp._

The stakes are different, now. Nothing that’s going to get fixed by going a few rounds against the guy he sat next to in his math class in the parking lot of the Uni-Mart, spitting blood onto the pavement next to his head, looking up, and asking _who the fuck is next, then?_ until they stopped coming at him.

At school, the day of Reading Circle with Mr. Patrick, TK’s waffling between finding an excuse to walk past the kindergarten classroom—just to check on things, provide some moral support—and maintaining his distance. He thinks he’s doing a decent job of keeping it to himself, until Kess throws a bouncy ball at his head and asks what the hell is wrong with him because he’s being even more of a twitchy SOB than usual.

“Uh, nothing,” he says.

“You’re such a bad liar.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.” She makes a face. “God, sometimes I worry that I spend too much time with second graders and that I’m like, regressing. That’s not something _you_ have to worry about, obviously.”

TK throws the ball back. She catches it, and he might as well admit it; it’s not like it’s a secret that Nolan’s here today. “Just wondering how reading circle is going.”

“Oh yeah, the reading circle Skywalker to your Obi-Wan,” she snickers. “Is that _today_? How could I possibly have forgotten.”

“He’s so bad at reading,” TK says, which is what he told her on Monday when she asked how his _date_ went, ignoring the pit in his stomach when she said that word. “I’m so worried for him.”

“Well.” She pitches the ball back into a bin, puts her hands on her hips. “Go check on him, then.”

TK does what he wanted to do the whole time, and goes.

There are a couple of teachers clustered outside Addie’s kindergarten class door—the young, hot ones, and the high school English teacher, who’s a huge Flyers fan. She is also terrifying.

She collars TK immediately. “Did you know about this,” she whispers.

“Uhm, what.”

“That _Nolan Patrick_ has a _daughter_ and that she _goes here_.”

“Uhm,” he repeats. She’s staring at him. So he says, “Yes?” and she lets out a kind of muffled shriek.

“You have _betrayed_ me.”

“_Ssh_,” hisses Miss Hendrix from third grade, who is tall and blonde and looks like she could very easily moonlight as an underwear model. TK wishes he didn’t know that she broke up with her boyfriend of four years over the summer. Wishes that no one else was clustered around the door, so that he could—yeah, okay—be exactly as creepy as he wants to be, and stare his fill at Pat in the reader’s chair, Addie leaning against his knee while he—_yes_—hoots like an owl at the rest of the class like he’s practiced, the fucking giant competitive perfectionist nerd that he is.

TK would die for him. It’s really that simple.

It’s also hopeless, and self-delusional.

Still.

TK would die for that man and his tiny daughter and the careful way he’s angling _The Mitten_ out towards his audience, the way his mouth is moving as he enunciates his words and asks all of the kids to yip like foxes, roar like bears.

They’re interrupted by the assistant headmaster sweeping down the hallway. “Don’t you have young minds to be inspiring?” she asks, pointedly, and they scatter.

TK just hopes Patty didn’t fuck up the snacks.

He’s out on the rooftop practice field with his fourth-grade class when his walkie-talkie crackles to life. “Incoming,” Kess’s voice says, and that’s all she gives him, even after he yells into it for a while.

So TK’s snapback is turned the right side around, and he’s not yelling into the walkie-talkie, and he is modeling textbook-perfect age-appropriate interventions, in case it’s the head of the P.E. department.

It’s not.

“Oh,” he says, to Nolan Patrick, and his shoulders, and the way he’s kind of squinting into the brightness of the sunshine. There’s a bright blue visitor sticker on his right shoulder, _Mr. Patrick_ written on it in loopy handwriting. “It’s you.”

“It’s me,” Pat agrees in his deep voice. He puts on a pair of sunglasses. “Jesus, what chaos is this,” he asks, looking at the screeching waves of fourth graders.

“Capture the flag.”

“It’s very loud,” he says doubtfully, as if the fucking National Hockey League is some like, model of dignified restraint.

“Kids are loud, bud.”

“I’ve noticed. They just have so much _energy_.”

“Addie’s a live wire for sure,” TK agrees. She’s like an Energizer Bunny: she just doesn’t quit, even after everyone else in her class is dropping. She’s probably a nightmare to live with in a city, even in a townhouse as big as the one Nolan undoubtedly bought—she’s a kid who needs like, five acres to tire herself out on.

“Yeah.” Pat shoves his hands in his coat pockets. “Listen, I, um. Wanted to let you know that reading circle went—well.”

“Oh, really? Did it,” TK says, as if he is a very chill person who did not like, go check on that.

“Shut up, I saw you creeping through the fucking window,” Patty grumbles. He doesn’t look _displeased_, though. “Whole goddamned audience.”

“You should see the hallway for Mr. Harper. Or Mrs. Ertz.”

Whatever Nolan would have said next is interrupted by a very urgent request for a Band-Aid, and for Coach K to stop letting people be _mean_. TK fulfills one of these requests, dispenses a hug and a hair-tousle; tries to make the other a teachable moment, gets stared down in disgust by a nine-year-old.

Par for the course. He shrugs and shoves the kid back out into the fray. Support and challenge, or whatever.

Pat’s looking at him some kind of way when he levers himself back up to his full height. TK switches his hat backwards to give himself something else to focus on, scrubs a hand through his hair before he settles his hat into his preferred orientation.

“You’re really good with them.”

“Gotta be, man.” TK checks his watch—two minutes left before they change teams. He calls out the warning and turns back to Nolan. “I love the little weirdos. Can’t help it.”

“I don’t think I am.”

“You nailed your first reading circle,” he points out. “Unless you dropped the ball on the snacks.”

“I did not.” Pat winces. Admits, “Well, okay, my meal service didn’t.”

“Whatever it takes, man. Outsource that shit.”

Pat makes a face, like TK is too dumb to live. “I don’t want to like, outsource raising my kid. I just suck at cooking.”

“I’m not judging you, dude.”

“You can probably cook,” Pat grumbles. “Great at reading circles. Like, the kid whisperer. And you’re—” He cuts himself off; blushes. TK’s pinned in place by those eyes, the rush of blood in Patty’s cheeks.

“I can cook,” he says. “I can cook pretty well,” he repeats, because when he doesn’t know what to do, he talks. “Like, nothing fancy but I can definitely cook. Like, food. For myself, and also, like, my roommate, who’s—” and then its TK’s turn to be cut off, this time by the timer going off on his watch.

He calls time in his coach-voice, wades out into the fourth graders. Calls Nolan a special celebrity guest, makes him count off the kids when they reshuffle the teams.

“Who’s _that_,” one of the girls asks. “Coach K, is that your _boyfriend_?”

“Um, that would be a negative.” Can Pat hear this? TK hopes Pat can’t hear this.

“Well,” she stage-whispers, “he _should_ be. He’s _really_ cute.”

“He’s too old for you, Laila,” TK tells her, so he doesn’t kill her. “Like, way too old.”

“Not too old for _you_. ‘Cause you’re both super-old.”

“Oh my god,” TK says. “We’re starting the game right—now!” He blows his whistle, and the little monsters scatter. Fucking perfect; they can torture each other for a while, instead of him.

“So, uh.” Nolan’s looking out at the game, one kid trying to deke and getting tagged, but not crying about it; and TK knows he must have heard the little sidebar. He braces himself. One of the reasons he works at Friends is because they’re explicitly pro-LGBT. Maybe it’s some weak shit but TK just can’t handle working somewhere that’s going to doubt whether he can like, be professional in the boys’ locker room. Here it’s not even a question. And if a parent has ever had a problem with TK teaching swim safety to their son, nobody’s let him hear it.

“Yup, I’m gay,” TK says, before Nolan can say anything else. “It’s not like, a secret. So mostly they all know.”

“Oh,” is all Pat says. He’s inscrutable behind the round black lenses of his sunglasses.

He doesn’t go anywhere, though. Instead he sticks around and helps ref the rest of the game, and then herd the fourth graders back inside. Mumbles a goodbye down at his sneakers, and then TK watches the back of his shoulders disappear down the hallway.

There’s nothing to read into any of it. Just like, congratulations, Nolan Patrick, for not being a ragingly outspoken homophobic asshole. If he wants to switch Addie into Kess’s gym class, he can be TK’s fucking guest, okay.

Nolan’s not even the Hockey is for Everyone ambassador for the Flyers—that’s Kevin Hayes, because of course it’s Kevin Hayes, showing up for Philly Pride, throwing his shirt off the float within ten minutes, getting sprayed with water cannons and orange glitter. It had been a minor thing in the hockey media afterward: people speculating about Hayes being a little _too_ into it, then Hayes finally getting asked about it by some NBC reporter. He’d laughed it off with his big Boston personality and asked the reporter if anyone, honestly, thought there was a raging party he _wouldn’t_ turn up for. Then he’d gotten serious, talking about how important it was to go beyond just saying the right words, and instead working to change the whole climate. He’d mentioned, offhand, that someone he knew pretty well was gay, and that he saw how hard it was for them sometimes, and so he’d figured it was important to step up and do his part.

TK and Lawson had been drinking beers in the living room. Lawson pelted TK with the pull-tab from his beer can. “Wonder if it’s someone on the team?”

“Not a fucking chance,” TK had answered. “Gotta be someone from like, college. Or Boston. I heard he has like thirty cousins.”

“Oh my god, is it a _Tkachuk_,” and things had devolved from there.

Nolan doesn’t ask for Addie to be switched into Kess’s class, though. Doesn’t do anything, or say anything. TK figures that’s it—like, he was maybe nominally acceptable as a bro, before. Someone to help out with kid stuff, maybe knock back a beer with under the right circumstances.

Now he’s just like, a teacher.

Nobody.

“Jesus, you are in a bad mood. What the fuck is wrong with you,” Lawson says, a week or two later. “Teeks. Go like, do some yoga, or lift some weights, or run ten miles.”

“I tried,” TK grumbles at his phone. He means to toss it onto the other side of the couch, but drops it instead, and has to listen to it clatter against the hardwood floor. Fuck; he really can’t afford to replace it right now. He swears, loudly. Louder than dropping his phone deserves.

“Did you do _all_ of those things, or,” Law hints.

“Fucking fine, I didn’t do yoga yet.” The thought of trying to be like, _present_ with his body makes his skin crawl. TK doesn’t want to _think_. He wants to turn up the music in his headphones to a dangerously high level, loud enough that the bass line numbs out his brain, and go run another six miles, do another forty minutes of reps in the gym.

But that would be really fucking stupid. He rolled his ankle around mile eight this morning, not bad enough to stop running, but badly enough that it’s aching now. That makes him pissed off, too.

“I have another idea,” TK says. “How about I don’t do yoga, and we go get really drunk instead.”

Lawson sighs. “I have plans with Claire.”

“Claire can come, too.” TK’s always liked Claire; he likes the way she and Lawson are together, his syrupy and obvious happiness in her company, and so he’s never minded that Lawson is undeniably less, whatever, _available_ than he was before they started dating. But he doesn’t want to be alone right now, stuck pacing around the apartment with the useless fucking hamster wheel of his _thoughts_: Nolan’s tongue on the rim of a beer glass; his face flushed and triumphant on a TV screen, screaming victory up to the rafters of the Wells Fargo Center.

That one syllable, _oh_, and then nothing.

Well, nothing except TK’s—whatever. Anger. He’s angry, and hurt, and disappointed, and he has no justification for any of it but that doesn’t make the feeling any less real. Makes it worse, maybe, because he knows—he fucking _knows_, he’s not _actually _that stupid—that Nolan Patrick never owed him a goddamned thing. It’s not Nolan’s fault that TK imprinted on him like some kind of horny baby duckling.

Lawson’s watching him. TK doesn’t like it; feels like he’s coming unglued, like he’s going to shake out of his skin. He picks his phone back up and scrolls through Instagram instead, for the second time in the last twenty minutes. He knows that’s never a great sign—TK’s never on social media that much if he’s in a good place, only opens it up more frequently to torture himself when he’s already feeling like a disaster—and Lawson must pick up on it. TK hears him walk back to his room, slam some drawers, and then he’s back out in the living room, throwing TK’s rolled-up yoga mat at his face. TK lets it hit him.

“Hot yoga, bitch,” he says. “Get the fuck up. Class starts in 15.”

“Can’t we just drink instead.” TK hates the whiny note in his voice.

“Drinks after. I’ll even buy the first round.”

Lawson combo bullies and bribes him down the stairs, out the door, into the yoga studio around the block. Claire meets them there. It’s a hard class. Brutal, actually, after the punishing workout TK already did in the morning.

He feels better afterwards, though. Like he sweated out some of the poison, or like he’s tired enough that it’s stopped mattering—for TK it’s usually the same thing.

“Thanks, dude,” he grumbles at Lawson.

“Brothers for life,” Law tells him, and drags him in for a sweaty hug. Claire piles in behind him to complete the sweaty post-yoga sandwich.

TK loves them, he really does. Says it into Lawson’s chest.

“Shut the fuck up,” Law answers. “You’re gonna make me cry.”

They go back to the apartment, and take turns using the shower. Claire orders a giant meat-covered pizza; Law goes and picks up a case of beer. They’re pretty deep into it when Lawson asks him, “So, did you wanna talk about it, or,” and for maybe the first time in his life, TK doesn’t. He feels better but he’s still feeling kind of—bruised, maybe, about the whole Nolan situation, even if it was his own fault. Even if there’s no “situation,” just like, one trip to one bookstore, one beer, one more round of TK getting stupidly over-invested in a capital B capital I Bad Idea.

So obviously the Harvest Festival is like, the next weekend. TK is aware that the Flyers are away on Friday and at home on Sunday. So it’s not impossible that Nolan will be there; maybe the PTA prez managed to pin him down for a volunteer shift, after all.

He’s not thinking about it, except that he’s actually thinking about it all the time, so. That’s a bummer for him.

It’s worse than he thought. He gets to the check-in table, finds his name on the assignment list. It says Pumpkin Broom Race—which is fine, that’s some semi-controlled chaos and very much in his wheelhouse—and when he automatically scans for his co-supervisor, because last year he got stuck with the drama teacher and that was just, not a fit—of course it’s Nolan Patrick.

His name has initials next to it. A looping, illegible scrawl, the same as his autograph looks except there’s no number 19. So Nolan’s here, already.

Fuck his life and everything in it.

Kess smirks at him from across the table. She’s one of the faculty festival co-chairs. “I put you with your man.”

“He’s not my man, and you are the worst person I know,” he tells her. He thought she was up to something yesterday: she’d seemed way too chipper for 3pm on a Friday.

“Have fun, babe.”

“No,” he says, and goes to find his pumpkin patch.

Nolan is already there, surrounded by pumpkins and looking like a black-clad scarecrow against the bright green turf of the practice field. He’s frowning down at the clipboard with instructions for the game and his shoes are untied again and his whole—presence, whatever, smacks TK hard in the diaphragm. It’s just not fair, okay, and he knows life’s not fair—tells that life lesson to like, six kids a day—but TK wishes that, just this once, it would be.

Nolan looks up, and gives TK a kind of tentative, soul-killing flicker of a smile. “Hey. Saw your name on the list,” he says in his deep voice. “I’m glad I got the professional help, man.”

“Who’s bringing Addie?” TK asks, instead of saying hi or being normal. She’d been excited about it in class on Friday, tugging on TK’s hand and telling him how she was going to beat all the older kids in the races.

“Kevin and maybe my mom.” He offers TK the clipboard, which, no need; TK could run pumpkin broom relays in his sleep. “A few of the guys are bringing their families, actually. The Girouxs, um, the Pitlicks. Maybe a few more. The schedule actually worked out okay.”

“Wow,” TK says. “It’s really amazing that this isn’t like, in the Inquirer yet. Or at least on Twitter.”

Nolan winces. “It’s uh, actually kind of—planned. For Monday.”

“So we’re, whatever, stage dressing,” TK says. He doesn’t like the nasty note in his voice, but he doesn’t quite know how to make it go away.

“It just kind of—worked,” he says, quietly. “We didn’t want to put anything out there until we knew for sure she’d be staying.” He shrugs. “My mom still wants to take her back to Winnipeg, but—” He shakes his head. He’s wearing a beanie again; it looks soft. TK doesn’t want to be paying attention to how soft Nolan’s beanie would be under his palm. “She’s my responsibility.”

“Yeah,” is all TK says. He doesn’t ask for the backstory, even though he thinks Nolan gave him an opening, and God knows he’s been curious; doesn’t say much of anything, really, that doesn’t relate directly to pumpkins or brooms or the fucking Harvest Festival for the next hour.

That list expands to hockey once half of the Philadelphia Flyers descend on their activity station. Even some of the guys with no kids—Farabee, Frost, Aubé-Kubel—show up, and they organize the most hypercompetitive rounds of pumpkin broom relays the Rittenhouse Friends Harvest Festival has ever seen. Nolan gets dragged out for a race or two, looking ridiculous in his untied shoes, bent over and racing Ivan Provorov and Joel Farabee to see who can use a broom to push a pumpkin to their partner first.

Addie and Tyler Pitlick’s kids are cheering, bouncing alongside them and calling out all kinds of useless suggestions. Claude Giroux is reffing, calling Farabee on a trip and nailing Nolan for an out-of-zone pumpkin exchange to Pitlick. Miss Hendrix from third grade has locked in on Frost like a homing missile.

TK really, sincerely, would like to know what the fuck has happened to his life.

“You’re quiet,” a Boston accent proclaims in his ear. It’s Hayes, obviously. He has Addie’s school backpack—pink, unicorns, rainbows, the whole jam—dangling from one massive shoulder. If Nolan’s big, Hayes is a fucking giant: TK has to look up, way up, to meet his eyes. But not like, in a sexy way. Just a Lawson-esque _how does one human man grow so large??_ kind of way.

“It’s uh,” TK starts. “A lot,” he finishes.

“Yeah, Patty’s in the same boat.”

TK can’t quite smother a snort at that: there’s just no chance that’s a factually accurate statement.

“Really,” Hayes says. “Bro. He’s trying to hang but like, between you and me—” as if TK is a person who has things to keep between himself and _Kevin goddamned Hayes_, “he’s not doing that great at it. ‘Cause he’s like, not the best at stuff with like. People. And he’s got a lot of changes happening kind of all at once. New house, Addie, I hear he’s getting a dog—” he grins at TK with his fake teeth, as if there are things that the two of them have as common reference points, “—and before all that he was kind of working through some stuff, anyway. Like, pretty heavy stuff.”

“The migraines.”

“Yeah, _and_ the migraines, I guess,” Hayes says, and kind of—stares at him, like there’s something that he’s waiting for TK to pick up on.

Whatever it is, TK’s not getting it. Mrs. Patrick, Ryanne Giroux, and a few of the other WAGs are over talking to the president of the PTA and the headmaster; he watches Tyler Pitlick hip-check Carter Hart into a haybale. He’s immediately piled on by Gavin Giroux and the two pint-sized Pitlicks in pom-pom hats, and pretends to be trapped under their weight as Farabee yells about goalie interference and Nolan shouts back that _there’s no goalie interference in a relay race, Bee_.

It’s a whole lot, basically. Just, a lot. Enough without Hayes still looking at him with his eyebrows raised, as if he’s waiting for TK to get hit with a lightning bolt of like, knowledge.

November is the wrong time of year for that weather pattern, though, and TK’s getting summoned over by the PTA president to take pictures for the newsletter, anyway. They do some stage-y ones, TK and Nolan handing broomsticks to miniature Flyers; then the older generation generously allows their children back out onto the field and that’s cute as hell, too, Addie Patrick and Gavin Giroux combining for the W even over the older kids. They’re both intense, competitive.

Nolan picks Addie up after her victory, and smiles down at her with a focused softness that TK doesn’t want his weak, traitorous heart exposed to. So he finds a kid who needs something from him, instead; god knows there are enough of them around.

That’s the picture that goes up on the npatrick19 Instagram account on Monday morning. TK only knows because Law texts him about it. He’s back off social media, he’s doing fine, but of course he still pulls it up.

There are Nolan and Addie at the Rittenhouse Friends pumpkin broom relay, sandwiched between an ad for animal-themed snapbacks (which are actually kind of dope, TK wants one until he clicks on it and sees that they’re 35 whole dollars) and somebody from college’s new baby.

TK thinks Nolan’s agent, or his mom, or the Flyers front office, must have workshopped the text—the rest of his posts are a few words at best, maybe a sentence if he’s really feeling chatty. This one introduces Addie, says he’s excited she’ll be living with him full-time, and asks nosy assholes like TK to respect their privacy during this transition. TK doesn’t think Nolan would have used a word like “transition”; he would probably have posted the picture and captioned it something like “not taking questions bye” with a hand-wave emoji.

That makes TK’s chest ache in an unanticipated kind of way. It’s got to be a lot of pressure, being under a microscope like that. It makes him feel kind of—guilty, whatever, for the time he’s spent stalking Nolan’s Instagram, for the number of times he replayed Hayes’s Insta stories where Nolan was standing in their old kitchen, looking like a giant, offended cat.

TK locks his phone and goes to do his job. He jokes with Kess about his day supervising the Flyers’ pumpkin races; he attends the all-staff meeting and takes diligent notes. He runs drills with the soccer team, and goes to the gym, and then goes home to make dinner for Lawson and Claire.

The Flyers go to western Canada. They lose, and lose, and lose. Finally win in OT against Calgary.

That’s the night TK gets another email. He didn’t stay up to watch the game—he’s like, responsible, gotta get sleep, whatever, and his body at twenty-five can’t hang with the 10pm puck drops.

_Hey_, it says, when he gets to work. _Don’t really know how to say this but I’ve been thinking about the other day. You told me something kinda important and I didn’t have the best reaction. Don’t want you to think I was judging you or whatever, I’ve had a lot going on and it’s not an excuse but I just didn’t know what to say. Or, I don’t know, how to say what I wanted to say._

TK doesn’t think he’s being dramatic if he says that last sentence kind of—haunts him. It follows him, ghost-like, through the first half of the school day. It hovers behind his shoulder while he’s monitoring a lunch shift; distracts him from his second graders bouncing balls on the rainbow parachute, and he has no one to blame but himself when one of them hits him in the face, when he doesn’t intervene quickly enough to prevent a total meltdown from one of his higher-needs first graders.

Potential meanings flicker at the edges of his eyes, along the surface of his brain: dumb bullshit he doesn’t want to acknowledge, a stupid undeserved St. Elmo’s fire flicker of—hope.

He just can’t think of why Nolan would care enough to send him that email. He’s nobody, really. Maybe his daughter’s favorite teacher, sure, but it’s not like TK would dock her grade because her dad didn’t like, _validate_ him properly for coming out. TK’s a big boy and he’s gotten a hell of a lot worse reactions than a monosyllabic _oh_.

Fine, he can think of a reason for the email.

It’s just not real.

He can think of reasons why it _would_ be real, though. The burn of Nolan’s blush when TK called him pretty; fucking goddamned Kevin Hayes _smirking_ at the two of them standing angled together. _Yeah, you look like it_ mumbled to him in the back of a bar, with those vicious blue eyes raking him from top to bottom.

TK’s done with that shit, though. He told himself he was done; and that he was moving on from his, whatever you want to call it, _fixation_; and he meant it.

He still answers Nolan’s email, though. It’s from the famous fucking parent of one of his students; he has to. He says some variation on _thanks, not a problem, no big deal_.

Closes that mental door.

Moves the fuck on. Or he’s doing his best to, anyway.

Nolan has other plans. It’s maybe a day later, when the Flyers are back in Philadelphia.

TK opens his inbox. Moans out loud, lets his head thunk down on his desk.

“What,” Kess says. “I have no less than eight emails from the Senator’s daughter, so this had better be good.”

“Nolan Patrick is still emailing me,” he mumbles into his keyboard. “Why won’t he leave me _alone_.”

He glances up; Kess is chewing on her lip, looking a little worried. “Teeks, what the hell is actually going on. If Nolan Patrick is emailing you, about literally anything, you should be like. Fucking _thrilled_. This should be the best moment of your life.”

“It’s not, okay,” he says. He doesn’t want to get into it; wishes he hadn’t said anything at all, that he’d played it off like he’d just gotten an email from a helicopter parent or that he’d gotten stuck with an extra shift covering morning pickup.

“What did he even say?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t opened it.”

“Well, Travis,” she says, slowly, “maybe you should do that.”

The email contains two things.

The first is the sentence, _I do think it’s a big deal though_.

The second is a phone number.

Travis yelps. Goes over backwards in his chair.

“What on _earth_ is going on in here?” the head of the P.E. department barks from the door, and then Travis’s backwards snapback and extremely threatening email inbox are the least of his problems.

But that’s a thing now: he has a contact in his phone for Pattycakes. He picked the name because he doesn’t want to have a contact in his phone for _Nolan Patrick_. Just can’t even begin to imagine if Law or Claire or Kess saw an unread text on his lock screen with that name on it.

Two days later, though, it’s still a moot point because he hasn’t used the number. He doesn’t know what the fuck he’d say; has typed and deleted at least 10 different texts, all of them stupid or useless or worse. And he and Lawson are going to the Preds game on Friday—he’ll be sharing air with Nolan, Pat, whoever. Law has the corporate seats tonight, too. They aren’t as nice as the seats Nolan gave him before, but they’re not far off, either.

“Buddy,” Law says, when Travis comes out of his room wearing the Lindros sweater again, “please stop wearing that. You’re gonna spill something on it. And then I’m gonna have to kill you.”

“Won’t.”

“Will.”

“Buy me a new one, then.”

“Wear one of the ones you’ve already got.”

“I’m not wearing his number!” Travis wails. “What if he _sees_ me, he’ll think I’m some crazy stalker. And I haven’t even texted him yet. He probably hates me now anyway.”

Law freezes, beer can halfway to his lips. “…texted him.”

“Um, what.”

“Explain,” Law orders in what TK thinks of as his Future Dad voice. He would love to say he’s as immune to it as he is to Kess’s judgmental eyebrows, but the thing is, Lawson deploys it much more selectively.

“Um, no.” TK pauses, tries “Um, I think Matt Duchene has been playing well recently?” which is usually a reliable way to redirect Law, who is a noted Matt Duchene hater. Not that Travis like, disagrees.

Instead, Law goes to the fridge, removes another can of beer. Cracks it open, the hiss of the top loud in the quiet apartment. Sets it on the bar next to him. “Sit.”

“I’m driving, though?”

“I’ve heard people talking about these new things called Lyft or the train,” Law says. He gestures to the barstool again. “Sit the fuck down, Travis.”

Travis sits, and stares down at his beer. It’s one of Law’s fancy craft ones. He takes a sip. He doesn’t like it as much as the one he had with Nolan, but that was, maybe, the high point of his life. Except that he has _Nolan Patrick’s phone number in his contacts_, which he says down to the uncaring white tile of their breakfast bar. The grout’s looking a little grimy; he should scrub it, maybe, except that there are always about fifty things he’d rather be doing than deep-cleaning their kitchen.

“For like, work,” Lawson prompts, and then TK can’t keep fixating on their fucking grout.

“I don’t really—think so?” He’d thought about that angle; of course he did. But Pat obviously knows his school email, and if he wanted to talk about Addie all he’d have to do would be to call Friends and ask for his extension. And they’ve never really emailed about Addie, anyway.

“Travis: what the fuck,” Law says, which is when TK knows he’s not getting out of it—he’s gotten the Future Dad Voice and two _Travis_es in the last minute.

“It’s uh, it’s kind of been a lot. Of like, nothing, because it’s clearly nothing. But like—it’s also still a lot. To, um, me. It’s been—kind of. Hard.” He says it down to his beer, feels Law’s hand thump down on his shoulder, and hold the way it’s been holding since they were six.

“You fucking idiot,” Lawson tells him, once the whole thing has come spilling out: the puck, Kevin _fucking_ Hayes and his _looks_, the beer, the _oh_, the email, all of the fucking _blushes_. “You are such a fucking freak of nature. Oh my god, Nolan Patrick totally wants to fuck you. I can’t deal with this.” He’s got his face in his hands, scrubbing his fingers through his hairline.

“That’s not, actually, possible, though?” TK says. His beer is long gone. He wants another one slightly more than he wants to not pay for a Lyft—they’re way too late to fuck with SEPTA by now, although god only knows how bad the traffic is going to be—so he slides over to the fridge and pulls two more out.

“Can you think of another explanation that makes sense?”

“Um,” Travis says, cracking open the beers. “He’s like, a nice person.”

Law snorts. “Buddy. I’ve seen this dude, okay. Nobody thinks Nolan Patrick is a _nice person_.”

“He could be nice,” Travis protests, longstanding habits of defending Nolan’s character against any and all detractors kicking in. But even he can’t maintain that um, _polite fiction?_ for long, so he continues with, “Like, or he’s worried that I’m going to be mean to Addie because of, whatever.”

“And the way to resolve that,” Law says, “is through sending you ambiguous emails and giving you his _personal cell phone number_.”

“Maybe it’s not even his phone number,” TK says. “Maybe it’s, I don’t know. The ticket office.”

“Dumbass.” Law whacks him on the shoulder; not quite as hard as Hayes, but close, and way more threatening anyway. “Text it and find out. Unless you don’t actually want to,” which is, actually, kind of the problem: TK wants to, and he doesn’t, all at the same time. He wants to because—literally, how could he not. But he also _doesn’t_ want to because it turns out that all those same pathetic little hopes and dreams are still floating around in his head, in his stupid, _stupid_ heart, and he just doesn’t know if he’s strong enough to take getting them smashed, after all.

“I’m not texting him right now. He’s got a _game_, god,” is what he says instead.

“We are not leaving this room until you text him,” Lawson informs him. “He’ll see it when he sees it.”

“Um, no?” TK tries, but he knows it’s a lost cause.

Together, they come up with, _this is TK._ _good luck tonight! I’ll be at the game. getting a game misconduct for killing Matt Duchene probably isn’t worth it, except that it is a service to humanity._

TK contributed the first three sentences.

Lawson added the last, when he had to hit the _send_ button on TK’s phone because TK was too much of a coward.

“Shut up,” he says, holding TK’s phone of out his reach, which isn’t _fair_, okay—he has those long freak arms and it’s not TK’s fault that he’s just like, a _normal_ size instead of a _giant_ size.

And TK doesn’t really ever shut up about it, not on their way out to the Lyft, not sitting in the traffic on 95, not walking through the doors of the Farg. They’re late, the first period already halfway gone by the time they sit down in Lawson’s fancy company seats, right on the glass behind the Flyers’ goal. Unfortunately it’s already seen some traffic: they’re down 2-1.

“Fuck me,” Law grumbles, looking up at the scoreboard. They’d stopped to get beers on the way in, massive Bud Lite cans that make TK feel child-sized and Lawson just look—normal.

“Never.”

Law makes a kissy face. “You totally would.”

TK gags theatrically; then Coots is clattering a Pred into the glass in front of them, and they’re too busy yelling to keep sniping at each other.

The score is still holding at the first intermission. TK handed his phone over to Law for the night—he doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to jump out of his skin every time he feels a phantom vibration, doesn’t want the temptation to scroll through Nolan’s Instagram, doesn’t want to rabbit-hole down WAG Instas and look at the kind of person NHL players _actually_ date—and it takes him a second to notice that Law is pulling out _his_ phone, instead of his own.

“Oh, _shit_!” he yells as soon as he’s read whatever’s showing up on the lock screen. So it’s not Kess or the group text from their college friend group.

“What,” TK screams back, but he’s already reaching across Lawson to scrabble for the phone.

There’s one word on the screen, sent by Pattycakes: _where_

TK’s fingers feel numb, whether from the jumbo beer or the dizzy, sparking surge of emotions. He manages to write _behind the goal you’re shooting towards, first row._

Nolan—Pat—whoever the fuck—doesn’t respond, not by the end of the first intermission, not during the second. And that’s fine. TK wouldn’t want him to respond anyway; he should be focusing on this game instead of answering TK’s dumb fucking texts.

But late in the third, when the Flyers have clawed their way up to a 4-2 lead, he smashes Matt Duchene and his fucking cursèd face into the glass, right in front of them. Looks TK straight in the eye for the first time in the entire game, and bares his teeth while he’s got Duchene tied up and struggling against him.

It is terrible and bloodthirsty and the antonym of _nice _and TK does, in fact, get halfway hard in the fucking Wells Fargo Center wearing Lawson’s mega-sized Lindros jersey. If he’d had the name _Patrick_ sitting across his shoulders he would probably have had to scramble to the bathroom and jerk off.

“Did he just,” Law whispers, once the puck has popped free and they’re skating off after it.

“Don’t talk,” TK whispers back, patting his knee very, very gently, and watching Pat tear back up the ice, shove three Preds out of his way, and fire the puck high past Saros’s glove to make it 5-2.

“Did that—”

“Ssh,” TK says. “We’re not talking,” he says, even though everyone around them is on their feet, screaming.

_I guess that was better than a game misconduct_, TK texts Nolan, later. They’re home and he’s curled up under the weight of his blankets. Everything is dark and still; it’s late enough that there’s only an intermittent flicker of headlights through his blinds, and he’s already gotten himself off, digging his fingernails into the skin of his inner thighs, biting the inside of his lip hard enough to taste blood.

There’s no response when TK wakes up in the morning, but there is by the time he’s run off his minor hangover, done a few bodyweight circuits on the living room floor, and taken a shower.

_you’re welcome. hope you enjoyed that as much as I did_.

TK wonders if Lawson would notice if he gets right back in the shower, because he needs to come again, immediately; and he doesn’t want to have to be as quiet as he has to be, in his room with their shared wall.

So, they text now. Not like, every day, as November rolls on; and Patty doesn’t keep acting like TK’s (well, Lawson’s) (not that TK disagrees) personal NHL hitman, but they are definitely texting. TK sends him links to adoptable dogs of the appropriate size and temperament; Pat responds with acerbic commentary, occasionally pictures of Addie or his teammates making funny faces, photos taken from airplane windows.

_I’ll be at the game before Thanksgiving_, TK mentions, the weekend before the holiday. _Can you get me Morgan Rielly’s autograph?_

He’s pretty drunk, out at a bar with Kess to celebrate school being closed for the break, or he wouldn’t have said it. He tries not to acknowledge that Nolan is like, famous; that he knows Nolan is different than somebody he would have met at work, or the gym, or in a bar exactly like the one he sends the text from. Not that they’re flirting, really, or doing much of anything: their first little exchange was definitely the heaviest, not that TK likes thinking about the fact that Matt Duchene could be involved in any way, shape, or form in his sex life.

Not that he has a sex life right now.

Well, he has his hand, and firsthand knowledge of what Patty sounds like growling in his ear.

And that is absolutely enough to do it for him at the moment.

_no_, is all Nolan writes back, then sends him a picture of one of Claude Giroux’s dogs sitting on his foot. So TK figures he can’t be too mad.

He and Law are in the gym the next afternoon. It’s like, a normal Saturday; nothing to recommend it. TK slept in, hauled himself down to the Trader Joe’s on Arch Street, made lunch. Schlepped his laundry into the basement of their building, even though it’s totally fucking haunted. Regular fucking shit.

He picks his phone up to next a song—no thank you Spotify, Girl Crush is a little too tormented for his current mood—and sees that he has a text from an unknown number with a 617 area code. _Hey man this is Kevin, I got your number from Pat. He mentioned you were gonna be in town this week, I’m having some people over for Tgiving Thurs if you wanna come. Just low key nothing fancy. Lmk!!_

He yells and throws his phone across the gym. It makes an ominous cracking sound when it hits the rack of free weights, his headphone cords whipping behind it.

Everyone’s looking at him. TK’s looking at his phone, panting and waiting for it to spontaneously burst into flames.

Lawson raises an eyebrow and removes an AirPod. “Did someone finally send you a dick pic, or.”

TK points at his phone with one shaking finger. “Worse.”

The worst, however, is yet to come. Because it’s started vibrating by the time Lawson picks it up; his second eyebrow lifts to join the first before he hands it back to TK. The case is cracked but the phone itself seems to be miraculously undamaged. Or like, maybe that’s not a miracle after all, as it turns out.

“Are you going to take that, or,” he says, after TK’s been staring at the phone buzzing in his hand for a while. Because he has an incoming call—as in, a _phone call_, not a dumb text about dogs, an actual _call_ that he will need to answer with his actual _voice_—and he’s thinking about screening it, he really and truly is, but then Lawson rolls his eyes, reaches over, and swipes to answer it.

TK watches himself in the gym mirror as he lifts the phone to his ear, as his lips shape out “Hey man,” and he’s not _quoting Hayes’s text_ but it’s like the words have _imprinted_ on his _brain_.

“Jesus fucking Christ, I’m going to fucking kill him,” Pat’s growling in his ear. “Sorry. He didn’t ‘get your number,’ he _stole my fucking phone_.” The volume on that last bit is elevated. TK can hear Hayes yelling something in the background of wherever Nolan is, not quite clear enough to make out the words.

“Um, it’s—yeah, it’s fine,” TK says, all low-key like he has the alternate captain of the Flyers stealing his phone number out of his teammate’s contact lists on the reg.

“So,” Nolan says, and there’s this long drag of silence.

TK wants to die. So he talks, instead. “It’s really cool, dude. I’ve got, you know, so many invites flying in for Thanksgiving—everybody I know wants a bite of my stuffin’ muffins,” and then he’s wincing into the mirror in horror at himself and everything in his life, while Lawson silently cracks up next to him.

“Stuffing…muffins,” Nolan says, after a second.

“They’re uhh. Muffins. Made out of stuffing. People—like them, like they are a very popular side dish option. That I make. For Thanksgiving. When I go to places. For that.” TK hides his face in his free hand. Lawson has tears streaming down his face. TK plans to kill him, and then himself, and then return from the grave to burn this entire gym to the ground because death isn’t enough, it really isn’t.

“O…kay.” Patty’s voice is so deep and sexy. TK actually doesn’t mind that it’s the last thing he’ll ever hear, before the end of his life (well, that and Lawson’s mostly-silent wheezes). “Well. Uh. Yeah. I’m sure you’ve got like, plans with your family. For your—muffins. So.”

“I don’t, actually,” TK admits, because this is a deathbed confessional, right? He has to be honest. “I’m staying here. They’re staying—there.”

“Oh.” There’s another long pause. TK scrunches his eyes shut, digs the fingers of his free hand into his hair. Finally, Nolan mumbles, sounding less pissed-off: “I mean, you could come to Kev’s. If you wanted to.”

“I don’t know,” TK says, honestly. “Do I want to?”

Long pause. Again. Then, “Like, if you did, that would be fine. I guess.”

“I’ll think about it, I guess.” TK’s got a foothold back on the low-key I’m-chill train and he is clinging onto that bitch for dear life.

“Text Hayesie, whatever,” and the call cuts off.

TK meets Law’s eyes in the mirror. Law is bright red; TK’s blushing a little, too, even under his tan.

“Buddy,” Lawson says, barely able to get the words out through his silent laughter/tears. He reaches out and pats TK on the shoulder. “Does he want to taste your _stuffin’ muffin_.”

The thing is: TK doesn’t, actually, have plans for Thanksgiving. Lawson and Kess are both going home, to Jersey Shore and Wisconsin respectively; and TK had decided after last Christmas that he was just—done with the visits home for a while. He still sees Chase and he’d still see his parents for lunch if they ever wanted to make the drive down to Philly. It’s three hours and fifteen minutes, four if there’s traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway; TK’s done it enough times to know.

But they don’t. His grandpa always has a doctor’s appointment, or the tractor needs to be fixed, or—something. There’s always something.

And he’s not visiting, not trapping himself in his childhood bedroom or feeling the smile freeze on his face when his grandpa asks him _now_ _when are you finally gonna bring a nice girl home_, when his dad tells him _Jesus Christ, Travis, it was a joke, when did you get so sensitive_. Not running into anybody he doesn’t want to see in the Walmart when he gets sent out for a can of cranberries; not escaping to Lawson’s garage to get way too drunk, and then puke in Mrs. Crouse’s rosebush.

His parents aren’t like, overtly bad to him anymore. They just _don’t get it_, with a steadfast, wide-eyed kind of belief that this is somehow, still, after all these years, a phase. Going to college instead of staying to work on the farm, moving to Philly, his, whatever, sexuality. TK had given up fighting with them about it by the end of college; Chase kept going for another year or two, but after last year he threw in the towel, too. So now TK calls his mother every other Sunday, after she’s back home from her weekly trip to the Ollie’s bargain outlet down in Lock Haven, and they talk for a minimum of thirty minutes. TK watches the clock and rambles about school, about his kids, whatever Lawson and Claire are getting up to; lets her catch him up on the farm, on who’s sold their gas rights and jacked up their truck, the Little League World Series if it’s the right time of the year.

It’s not much but it’s what he can manage, right now.

So he texts Pat the next day, _I really don’t have plans so like, if it’s cool, I could come. But I don’t wanna be weird_.

_Hayesie already made it weird_, Pattycakes texts back. _It’s fine. There’s gonna be lots of people anyway, he like collects all the sad sacks and fuckups who don’t have anywhere better to be._

_Ouch._

_I mean I’m 24 and I’ll be there with my kid and my mom,_ Pat says._ I’m not calling you anything I’m not calling myself_.

And that’s not like—the most ringing endorsement for Thanksgiving Chez Hayesie, but TK still manages to make himself text the 617 area code back,_ hey thanks for the invite, if it’s still open I’d love to come_. Because: whatever. YOLO. Shoot your shot, etc., etc., etc.

Hayes—Kevin—Hayesie—whoever the fuck, sends back: _oh yeah great, I know Patty will be happy about that!! But you can keep the muffins between the 2 of you, I get dinner catered._

Which like, TK is fairly certain that this is a joke about sex and Thanksgiving stuffing involving him, and Nolan Patrick, made by a Flyers A.

But he’s not sure, since he immediately has to go for a ten-mile run about it.

Because he certainly can’t _think_ about it.

Claire takes him to an extremely fancy wine shop down in Center City, and has a whole conversation with the guy in the store that TK doesn’t really—follow. He’s not a wine guy, okay. Give him a lager or a White Claw and he’s happy, but even he can admit that a case of Yuengling doesn’t hit the right note for Thanksgiving with Kevin fucking Hayes. So he spends $30 on a bottle of white wine instead, and Claire spends the drive home teaching him how to pronounce it.

“Chenin blanc,” she says, like _shu-nuhn blahn_.

“Chenin blanc,” he says, reading the actual letters that are written in elegant cursive across the label of the bottle.

“Teeks, it’s French.”

“Yeah, but we’re in America, so. What’s your point.”

“It’s just that you pronounce it—” She stops. “Well. These are hockey players. So. It’s probably fine, actually.”

It’s for the best that Lawson is leaving for home on Wednesday morning, because TK is a total wreck. He goes for a run, he goes to the gym, he goes to morning soccer practice with the kids, he goes to yoga, he scrubs the grout on the kitchen tile and then does the bathroom too, for good measure. He vacuums the floors, then the upholstery. He catches up on grading, makes unnecessarily elaborate lesson plans that will never survive their first engagement with real human children. Tries to watch a comedy special on Netflix; can’t sit still for more than ten minutes before he’s up again, purging all the expired condiments from the fridge.

By the time he’s done cleaning the fridge it’s time to leave for the game. He’s a combination of exhausted and strung out, fingers fidgeting against the steering wheel as he sits in traffic on Broad Street. At times like this he misses living on a farm—there was always shit to do, hard physical labor that he could immerse himself in until his mind quieted back down. Fix a fence, haul around hay bales, stack firewood; that’s harder to come by in the middle of Philadelphia. TK doesn’t understand how Lawson can sit at a desk all day, he really doesn’t.

The game’s good, though. He’s up in the seats he can afford himself, nowhere near the glass. There’s a wall of noise around him, and he ends up sitting next to a couple of pretty cool girls he can talk to when it’s quiet enough. The game itself is fast, physical, heavy on the D with good scoring chances on both sides. Toronto and Philly are both rolling this season, the Flyers’ Canadian road woes firmly in the rearview mirror.

The Leafs take it to OT, then a shootout. Hart makes two saves in a row and then Coots scores the winner, tapping the puck calmly past the goalie like there’s no doubt in his mind that it’s going in.

TK screams himself hoarse. It’s almost midnight before he makes it home, but he’s feeling calmer, more settled than he’s been all day.

There’s a text on his phone. _I didn’t see you_.

_It’s cool man, I was up in the seats I can actually pay for myself_. _No way you were gonna see me_ _unless your visor has binoculars haha_

_I’ll get you tickets for Ottawa._

_No worries I already bought one._

_Is it a good seat_

_It’s fine dude! Good enough for me I ain’t fancy._

There’s a long pause. TK watches dots pop up, then disappear, on his phone screen. He’s in bed, the lights out; he imagines Nolan in the same position, or maybe he’s still up, leaning against a kitchen cabinet with his hair curling over his shoulders. Finally Pat says, _we’ll talk tomorrow_ and that’s like, ominous, kind of? But it makes TK shiver anyway, drop his phone on his nightstand and skim his fingers over the skin under his bellybutton, skate them under the elastic of his underwear, come into his hand with his teeth dug into his bottom lip so he isn’t chanting _Nolan, Nolan, fuck, Nolan_ into the empty air of his bedroom.

Hayes lives in one of those extra-fancy Center City high-rises, because of course he does. Parking is somehow still a total bitch, even though it’s 5pm on a holiday. Well, 5:15, by the time he’s found a place to put his Camry that isn’t going to cost him a kidney. So TK is focusing more on parking and less on what is. You know. Happening in his life.

He grabs the wine out of the passenger seat, and also the case of White Claw he impulse-bought from the corner store that morning. Because Pat had said Hayes drank it, right? TK’s being thoughtful, or some shit, and also he really doesn’t want to get stuck drinking fancy-ass wine from (he double-checks the label) South Africa all night. Hadn’t Claire said it was French, though?

What the fuck ever, it’s almost certainly not going to be TK’s jam.

He’s thinking about wine vs. White Claw instead of thinking about the rest of it as he walks into the massive, marble-coated lobby. There’s a fucking doorman wearing a suit—TK didn’t even know Philly had apartment buildings with doormen—who checks his name off a list, and gives him a code for the private elevator. TK wishes him a happy Thanksgiving, then winces because an email circulated through Friends last week reminding everyone that Thanksgiving is genocidal and you shouldn’t assume that everyone celebrates it; and so he mumbles out, “Um, if you celebrate that, I guess,” and the doorman gives him and his White Claw a look of just, such devastatingly professional disdain that TK can’t even be offended, and says, “Have a _wonderful_ Thanksgiving, sir,” and TK’s still dying about it when the elevator _pings_ to a stop on the twenty-eighth floor.

Which is the only floor it goes to, because it is a private elevator. And TK thinks he’s been doing a fantastic job of holding it together, he really does.

But it’s just, like. A lot for him to deal with.

When the doors to the elevator roll open on Kevin _fucking goddamn it_ Hayes’s living room.

It’s crowded, noisy, and he’s immediately pounced on by two barking Boston Terriers that he recognizes from the Flyers’ holiday pet calendar as belonging to Joel Farabee. They’re followed by a lanky black greyhound—Morgan Frost’s, he thinks, as she politely sniffs his hand—and then a collection of scruffy little handbag dogs of unknown provenance.

“Shaddup, shaddup,” Hayes is yelling as he wades through the crowd. He’s got a wine glass in one hand and scoops up one of the handbag dogs with the other. “My sister’s,” he says, waving the dog as an explanation. “What’s up, man?”

“Um, dogs,” TK says. “There are a lot of dogs here,” he says, because he is actually too dumb to be alive. He tacks on, “Happy Thanksgiving,” to try to save it.

“Yeah, yeah, happy Thanksgiving,” Hayes yells at the volume TK has come to realize is his conversational setting. Because holy shit, he’s had enough conversations with Kevin Hayes that that he can make this kind of distinction. “Your boy’s running late, some kind of crisis about hair braids.”

“Um, who,” TK asks, because again: his brain, it is not doing well right now.

Hayes shoots him a pitying look. “Let’s get you a drink, man,” and then he’s herding TK through the crowd, introducing him as _Patty’s buddy, yeah, yeah, Addie’s teacher, remember him from the pumpkin thing where you made a total fool out of yourself_. Nobody seems to think it’s weird, not Farabee who gives him a fist-bump, not Morgan Frost’s girlfriend (sorry, Miss Hendrix) who says, “Oh, I heard about that!” or the _Flyers’ franchise goalie_ who smiles shyly and wishes him a polite happy Thanksgiving from a circle of rookies. If this is Nolan’s definition of _sad sacks and fuckups_, TK most certainly does not belong.

By the time they get to the bar on the other side of the living room, TK really needs that drink. TK needs four drinks. Maybe five. Fuck driving home; he can spring for a Lyft for the low cost of his sanity.

“Do you want wine, or,” Hayes asks him.

“Whatever’s fine. I’m not picky. I um, have these—things.” He proffers the wine and the White Claw. “Nolan said you drank—them. And my roommate’s girlfriend picked out the wine so if it sucks it’s not my fault.”

“I know,” Hayes says, “that you did not bring White Claw to Thanksgiving at _my_ house, when you have to know damn well that _Truly_ is the official hard seltzer of the National Hockey League.”

TK’s autopilot settings for this eternal battle kick in. He forgets where he is and who he’s talking to, when he says, “Yeah but Truly sucks, so. Sorry your bosses have bad taste.”

They’re really in it when the Patrick family shows up. Battle lines have been drawn; TK is staking his honor on this. Truly just—is not good, okay, and he doesn’t care how much money they pay the NHL. It just _isn’t_. He will die on this hill.

“Look, on a head-to-head comparison I just don’t see how anyone can possibly not admit that White Claw’s black cherry is just—_better_? Do you like your cherries to taste like _cherries_, or like _chemicals_? Come on, bro, get real.” TK is punctuating this extremely important point by shoving his can of Black Cherry White Claw into Kevin’s face, when he feels a small body impact his leg.

Addie’s big blue eyes are beaming up at him. Her hair is French braided—very badly. Like half of it’s falling out and a glittery purple ribbon has been very inexpertly twined around the end of it, but the ribbon does match her dress, so, that’s…something.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Nolan mumbles, banging a six-pack down on the counter.

TK shuts his mouth. Nolan has a braid, too, at the side of his face, tied off with a matching ribbon. It looks—kind of nice with his eyes, and his ferocious blush, because you mix red and blue together to get purple, right? And this is a total rabbit hole but TK’s mind can’t focus on the idea of Pat’s big hands, his long fingers, carefully trying and failing—failing _so fucking badly_—to French braid his tiny daughter’s hair.

“I didn’t want Grandma to do it,” Addie tells him, very serious. “Dad’s never gonna get better if he doesn’t practice.”

“Dad needs a drink,” Patty grumbles, pulling open a drawer and producing a bottle opener.

“It’s nice of you to help your dad practice,” TK says. “We can’t all get things right the first time.”

But then she sees a dog, and dogs are more interesting than boring old gym teachers, so she’s off.

“She’s still waiting for that dog, right?” TK asks. “I feel like I would have heard, if you got a dog.”

Nolan makes a face at the rim of his beer bottle. “Not yet. Probably after the Christmas break.”

“Puppy for Christmas, classic choice.” TK feels like he can’t quite suck in enough oxygen to fill up his lungs. Kevin’s taken himself off to hand Mrs. Patrick a glass of wine; she’s talking to someone’s mom, or aunt, or whatever, but TK sees her eyes dart over to the two of them; settle for a second; move on. The living room is loud, full of laughter and dogs and Boston accents, Frost chasing two rookies away from the aux cable, cater-waiters gliding around in the kitchen. Philadelphia lights glitter outside the massive wall of windows.

Quiet pulls at the space between their shoulders, and TK’s about to open his mouth to say god knows what, when Nolan says, still talking to his beer, “This isn’t how I wanted to—whatever. Do this.”

“Do what,” because he honestly doesn’t know. Learn to braid hair? Get a dog?

Blue eyes flick up at him. A blush is blooming to life on his cheeks. “Hang out. Whatever.”

“Ohh,” TK says, slowly, like this makes sense.

“I had—” He stops. Blushes harder.

“You had,” TK prompts, after Nolan’s taken a long drag of his beer and doesn’t seem any closer to completing his thought. He watches his throat as he swallows; it’s peppered with careless stubble and his truly pathetic Movember mustache, halfway grown in under his nose and petering out to nothing at the corners of his mouth. TK doesn’t care.

“Plans, whatever.” He shrugs. “Then Kevin had to. You know.”

“This is fine,” TK tells him. “This is—yeah. It’s fine.”

Pat makes a face, rolls his disdainful eyes. “Dude. Don’t lie. This is like, way too much.”

“Okay, yeah. To tell you the truth I’m freaking the fuck out. If we’re like, passing the feelings stick about it.”

“What the fuck is a feelings stick.”

“Bud. Do you even have a kid in elementary school, or what.” TK pulls out his phone to show him the clip from New Girl, and explains that there are several real-life feelings sticks at Rittenhouse Friends, and that they allow you to say whatever you’re feeling, without being judged. Pat narrows his eyes, mumbles out a very critical hot take on the concept of a _feelings stick_. Demands to know which teachers use them, so he can make sure Addie never ends up in their classes; and then just like that, it’s easy again, the way it had been in the back of that fancy fucking bar.

They stay posted up behind the bar until dinner, TK pouring people glasses of wine, cracking open beers and coming up with ridiculous tasting notes. He gives a master class on Ruby Grapefruit White Claw to one of Kevin’s Boston cousins, theatrically pours a Truly down the drain and smashes the can into the recycling bin when one of the rookies has the audacity to ask for one. Patty’s trying not to crack up behind him, and TK decides then and there that watching Nolan Patrick fail to smother a laugh is his favorite thing. Ever. In his entire life.

Dinner’s fine, still loud and chaotic. Kevin’s dining room table is as long as TK’s entire living room but it’s still barely big enough for everyone crammed around it: siblings, cousins (no Tkachuks though), rookies, dogs underfoot and Addie in Nolan’s lap. She and TK make identical faces at the Brussels sprouts Nolan piles on his plate.

“God, not you too,” Pat grumbles.

“They’re just—not good, dude. Like, of all the foods in the world, why would you choose _that_ one.”

“Shut up, I love Brussels sprouts.”

“Dad, we’re not supposed to say that,” Addie pipes up. “It’s not r’spectful.”

Nolan closes his eyes. TK can almost see him willing himself strength. He’s still got that stupid braid in his hair, which everyone seems to have very politely declined to chirp him for (although TK did see Farabee snapping a picture), and he’s such a picture that TK knocks their ankles together under the table. “Come on, hand her over so you can eat Satan’s tiny lettuce balls in peace,” and that’s basically how the rest of dinner goes.

Nobody stays late, and the only people really hoovering up food are TK, Addie, and the Boston contingent; for the most part everybody else is a WAG (diet plan) or a hockey player (different diet plan), since the Flyers host Ottawa the next day. TK also realizes, maybe three or four White Claws and an indeterminate number of glasses of wine later—the cater-waiters are like, sneaky stealth pourers—that he is, probably, the drunkest person at Thanksgiving. For the second year in a row, albeit under very, very different circumstances.

They’ve moved to the living room for coffee and pie, and Addie’s off teaming up with the handbag dogs to bother the long-suffering greyhound, so he can say “shit” out loud.

“What?” Pat asks him.

TK winces, and tries to enunciate. “I think I drank too much.”

“Who the fuck cares.”

“I don’t want to get embarrassing.”

Pat snorts. They’re leaning up against the wall of windows; Pat has a foot propped up on the glass, just observing the ruckus. TK feels like he could be flying. “Have you met you, or.”

“Hey,” TK says. “I think I’m great. I’m just saying. I don’t want to like, fuck up this very nice party.”

At that exact moment, a Boston Terrier runs past them with a turkey leg in its mouth. It is chased by the second Boston Terrier, a cater-waiter, and the Philadelphia Flyers’ 14th pick in the 2018 NHL entry draft, and it is having the adventure of its life. Two people with extremely thick Boston accents are yelling at each other in the dining room, something about the Patriots offensive line; another miscellaneous Hayes sibling has Cahtah Haht pinned in a corner, and he’s shooting please-save-me eyes towards Nolan, which are being ignored. There is a rookie standing on the coffee table, wearing a paper crown shaped like a turkey, and he is being photographed as the Spirit of Flyersgiving by Kevin Hayes himself.

“Is it a nice party, though,” Nolan deadpans.

“Fuck you, it’s nice to me,” TK says through his last mouthful of pie crust. “We can’t all be fancy.”

“But like. Standards.”

“Host this shit yourself then.”

“Maybe next year.” He tips his head back against the glass, closes his eyes like he’s so goddamned over it. TK doesn’t look at the long line of his throat, his patchy stubble. “Get some peace and quiet.” He opens one eye, slants a look over his shoulder and down at TK. “Hey, follow me,” and stalks through a closed door in the wall angling off next to them. It leads to a bedroom, a big one, with a bed the size of a yacht and a continuation of the floor-to-ceiling windows.

TK would love to say that his throat doesn’t close up and that he doesn’t imagine Pat grabbing him with one of those big hands and throwing him down onto all those acres of white sheets. But that would be a lie; and it also doesn’t happen. Instead Pat’s pulling open a window, that is actually a door, and stepping out onto a balcony.

“Are you coming, or what,” he mumbles, shoulders outlined against the glitter of the lights behind him.

TK swallows, follows him. “This is, uh. Nice.”

“It’s quiet,” Nolan says, like that’s the greatest recommendation in the world.

TK shuts his mouth before he can say anything to ruin Pat’s precious quiet time. They lean on the railing of the balcony next to each other, Nolan facing back towards the windows, TK on his forearms looking out, because he can’t look up at Nolan or he’ll die, probably. That or just come—unglued, with how close he is, how tall he is, dressed all in black like a very well-built scarecrow. His stupid shoes, that still aren’t tied.

TK’s tongue feels thick in his mouth. He looks at the city, at the spike of the clock tower on City Hall; doesn’t know if he should talk, or keep his mouth shut, or drop to his knees and tie Nolan’s shoes or breathe into the crease of his thigh. Feel those strong fingers twist through his hair.

He doesn’t really know how long they stay out there, with the lights and the night and the, okay, the quiet. TK’s never met a silence he didn’t want to break but this feels—different. Not awkward, like it had been before; instead it’s like—companionable, like the balcony has made this little bubble around the two of them and everything else is very, very far away.

“I used to come out here and just, sit,” Nolan says, finally. “When I was trying to figure out my head, and nothing was working. I’d just sit and watch the city, or whatever.”

“Would it help?” They’re so close to each other. TK could lean his shoulder an inch to the side and they’d be touching. Less than an inch. A centimeter, maybe.

“No, but nothing did, so.” He shrugs the shoulder that’s closest to TK.

“Is it helping now?”

He snorts. “Helping what?”

“I don’t know,” TK says, honestly. “Just, generally. Helping. With things. Like life, or.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

“You’re impossible.” It sounds like he’s smiling, maybe, trying not to.

“_Am_ I,” TK asks. He gives into the temptation, bumps their shoulders together. “I’m drunk, _actually_.”

“Shit.” He sighs. “I’m trying to have a moment.”

“I’m bad at those. Just like, fair warning. For—whatever. Like. I don’t know if that’s relevant, or, like, the kind of moment you are trying to have. But I am generally bad at them. I start talking and then I kind of, don’t shut up?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he grumbles. “Yeah, I get the picture,” but he doesn’t sound that mad about it. Their shoulders are still leaning together, close enough that TK can almost feel the buzz of the phone in his pocket. Pat pulls it out with a sigh; reads it, shoves it back into his pocket, and TK can’t be sure because the light’s so low but he’s pretty sure he’s blushing again. “I fucking hate Hayesie.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing,” says Pat, in a tone of voice that very clearly says, _something_. “We should get going, anyway. I can drive you home if you want.”

“I can get a Lyft. It’s only like, ten minutes.”

“It’s my fault you got dragged to this shit show.”

They’re still arguing about it when they get back into the living room, TK’s protests increasingly half-hearted—he’s never been good at keeping himself from doing something he wants to do, even if he knows he shouldn’t.

And he doesn’t want this weird fucking night to be over yet, okay; doesn’t want to say goodbye and wake up back in his bed in his tiny apartment in Fishtown, listening to SportsCenter through his neighbor’s living room wall. So instead he helps Mrs. Patrick collect all of Addie’s stuff, and pry her fingers out of one of the handbag dogs’ shaggy fur; carefully doesn’t listen when he sees Kevin trap Pat in the kitchen, chirping him about something until his cheeks are brilliant red.

Nolan drives a very shiny black Range Rover. Addie’s drooping on his shoulder as he eases her into the car seat in the back, their matching purple hair ribbons standing out against the gray concrete walls of the parking garage.

“You take the front,” TK says to Mrs. Patrick.

“I’m fine in the back,” she assures him, but he literally can’t do it, can’t kick Nolan Patrick’s mom to the backseat so he can, whatever, sit in the front and stare at Nolan’s cheekbones, at the way he purses his lips together when he’s concentrating.

He can see enough in the rearview mirror anyway, Pat’s eyes flicking to his mirrors and the backup camera as he reverses. It’s a nice car, definitely the nicest car TK’s ever been in, even if the floor of the backseat is scattered with crayons and Legos and plastic horses. Addie sleepily talks him through the backstory of her favorite horse. He can see why, she’s covered in blue glitter and she has a super-long super-fancy tail.

“Your dad can practice braiding it,” TK suggests.

Addie narrows her eyes, all disdainful. “He’s gotta get better before he can braid Princess Snowflake’s tail.”

Mrs. Patrick snorts from the front seat, not even bothering to try to hide it with a cough as she punches TK’s address into the car’s GPS system. Pat’s eyes are offended blue slits in the rearview mirror.

“Okay, yeah,” TK admits, letting his eyes skate past Patty’s in the mirror. “You are probably not wrong about that,” and they talk about the best ways to braid hair until she trails off mid-sentence, head lolling back against her car seat. It’s not that late, barely past eight, but it was a busy night for a five-year-old from Winnipeg, he guesses.

Fuck, it was an exhausting night for _him_, and TK’s gotten the Energizer Bunny plaque at the Friends faculty/staff end-of-year banquet three years in a row. And as far as he knows, he has no serious challengers in year four. So he leans his head back against the headrest, and watches the city go by.

“Sh—uh, shoot,” Nolan mutters after a few minutes, in time to the ding of an alert on his dashboard. They haven’t even merged onto 676 yet.

“Nolan,” his mom sighs, “you have _got_ to get better about putting gas in your car.”

“I know,” he snaps back, and makes a semi-legal left turn into a 7-Eleven behind the convention center. Addie doesn’t wake up, even though someone behind them lays on the horn. TK remembers how Patty assured him he didn’t speed or park illegally, and he thinks, _yeah, sure, okay hotshot_. Wonders how Pat would fare in traffic court. TK’s seen pictures of him in a gameday suit, all cleaned up with his hair cut—he looks like exactly the kind of fucker who would be able to argue his way out of $500 in parking tickets.

The credit card machine at the single pump isn’t working. TK can hear Pat swearing through the window. Mrs. Patrick massages the skin between her eyebrows with one finger.

“I’m going to, uh,” TK says, and hops out before he can think about it.

Pat’s glaring at the pump. “Fucking perfect. Like, it’s fine, I can get you home and then we can find another gas station. I just don’t want to—hear about it.”

“It’s not a big deal, we can just go inside,” TK says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his coat. It’s cold, maybe going to start raining, and he’s thinking about the weather instead of the way Pat’s—staring at him, so it takes him a second to catch on. “Holy shit!” he crows, when he gets it. “Holy shit, dude, did you seriously not know you could go _inside_ the gas station to _pay for gas_.”

“Shut the fuck up, I totally knew that.” He’s already spinning on one heel—lucky his dumb ass doesn’t trip on his stupid shoelaces, honestly—and stalking towards the doors, like some pissed-off cat who wants you to believe that this was his plan all along. TK trails after him in disbelief and wonderment, not buying it for a second.

“Do I need to give you a script, or—”

“Was _shut the fuck up_ not clear enough the first time, or—”

The heat inside the 7-Eleven is turned up way too high, which is probably what Pat’s going to blame his damned blush on. But it’s okay, TK knows the truth. He’s drunk enough that he wants a snack so he snags a packet of powdered-sugar donuts off the rack by the cash register, doesn’t bother protesting when Pat pays for them. TK earned that shit for teaching him a like, _life skill_.

“Do you want one?” he asks, ripping into the bag and fishing one out, because Nolan’s staring at it with like, _longing_ as the cashier processes his payment.

“Can’t.”

“Oh, the game, yeah.” TK’s talking through his donut—seriously, thank god for Nolan Patrick and his gas light, he _needed_ this donut.

“Can’t eat processed shit,” Pat clarifies. “For like, the migraines,” and then TK feels like an asshole.

“Oh, shit. Do you want me to throw this away?”

He narrows his eyes, back to offended. “Fuck you, it’s not like I’m a fucking alcoholic, can’t be around someone eating goddamned _gas station donuts_.”

“Okay then.” TK shoves the rest of the donut into his mouth. Swallows, inhales the rest of the bag as fast as he can. He doesn’t want Addie to wake up and be taunted with sweets, either—just not worth the meltdown.

No, it turns out that the meltdown TK gets to handle is his own. When he’s licking the powdered sugar off his fingers in the backseat, and sees Pat fucking—_watching_ him in the mirror. His eyes are dark, intense, his cheeks are red and TK’s _not_ getting a fucking boner in the back seat of this fucking car with his _daughter_ and his _mom_. That is just, not a thing that he is permitting to happen, and also, he would like to keep his state teaching license, please, and he thinks that is not going to be allowed if he continues to look at Pat’s eyes in the rearview mirror, because he will have gotten arrested for gross indecency within a three-foot radius of his—whatever—potential hookup’s—it’s not a thing—it’s maybe going to be, though—holy shit—TK’s not that dumb, he knows what that look says, and it does not say, _hetero bro shit ahead_—anyway, _this fucking person’s_ _mother and child_, who is also his _student_.

He looks out the window, manages to start talking about the traffic, and the never-ending construction on the Delaware Expressway, and all the cool spots in Fishtown where he does yoga and goes to brunch and drinks cheap beer.

“This is my street,” he says, finally. His shitty converted rowhouse apartment is beckoning like a beacon of safety. The street is barely wide enough for two lines of parked cars, and the Range Rover. “So I’ll uh. Be watching the game tomorrow.”

“I’ll leave you tickets,” Nolan says dismissively.

“Nah bro, it’s really cool, I already got—”

“There will be tickets at the box office,” Nolan says. His voice is flat. “Up to you if you use ‘em.”

“Um, okay,” TK manages, as he’s unbuckling his seat belt, sliding off the smooth leather seat. “I will, maybe, think about doing that.”

Nolan rolls his eyes. Grumbles, “Whatever,” as TK’s shutting the door behind him, and peels out of his narrow street.

After he picks up his car on the way to the Farg, TK uses the tickets. Well, ticket; there’s only one of him. He’s not stupid, okay, obviously he’s going to take the fancy seat on the glass above the shitty one in the nosebleeds. He doesn’t have like, pride at stake over this.

And fine: he likes tracking Pat’s broad shoulders and swinging stride as he accelerates, decelerates, swings out after a puck, as the Flyers skate out for warmups. Pat looks up, holy shit, like he’s looking for _him_; TK watches him press his lips together to try not to smile. He skates up, bangs once on the glass. TK fist-bumps him through the plastic.

Then Farabee’s yelling something from center ice. Pat makes a face and skates away.

“Oh wow!” says the kid sitting next to him, all wide-eyed. “Do you know Nolan Patrick?”

“Kind of,” TK answers, and that’s fine, that’s cool. He talks to the kid and his parents, asks about his youth hockey league, learns what position he plays and what year he’ll be draft-eligible (his mother, very politely, rolling her eyes in the background).

It’s a chippy game, entertaining if you like fights, not so cool if you don’t like watching the Sens dish out head shots. Pat drops the gloves and knocks down Tkachuk with three punches. It’s hot, okay, it makes TK itch, makes him feel wild.

He gets home and gets off, as soon as he’s locked the front door behind him. Comes into his hand leaning up against the wall, coat still zipped up to his throat.

He’s still feeling reckless when he comes down from it, when he pulls out his phone and types, _that was hot_. _watching you fight_.

TK can worry about it in the morning. Their texts have been pretty PG-13 so far, only verging on R for language, but if he’s somehow misreading this whole situation he might as well find out now. And Nolan’s only texted him after games a few times—he probably won’t see it.

But he does, because TK’s phone is buzzing again before he’s finished hanging his coat up. _yeah_?

_For fucking real bud._ _Had to do something about it as soon as I got home_.

There’s a long pause. TK’s thinking he went too far, mentally kicking himself for his stupid impulsive streak—they haven’t even been on like, a _date_, what the fuck was he thinking. They’ve barely spoken to each other like, _unchaperoned_, as if they’re characters in one of Claire’s BBC period dramas.

Instead he gets back, _fuck_, then a few seconds later, _that’s fucking hot too, you had to be fucking desperate for it_

_You have no idea._

_bet I do, you didn’t have to watch you lick that fucking sugar off your fingers last night_

Jesus fucking Christ. TK closes his eyes. He’s barely washed the come off his hand from round one; and he’s not 18 anymore, he’s not coming again in the next half an hour. But he wants to. Fuck, does he want to.

A new message is buzzing in before he can figure out what to write back. _look sorry I can’t actually do this right now. but do you want to get a drink tomorrow or whatever_

_Let me check my calendar_

_Are you kidding_

_Oh look at that it’s clear!_ 😊 _where & when do you want me, you said something about ‘plans’ last night_. TK hopes Nolan’s blushing, hopes he’s tonguing at his bottom lip, thinking about what TK would look like against his sheets, against his shower tile. Fuck, bent over his kitchen counter, or belly-down on his living room rug. Literally, _wherever_, as long as it won’t result in getting the kind of arrested that’s going to get him fired.

_Having a drink is plans_. TK can almost hear the snotty tone in his voice. He scrunches his fingernails through his hair, tries not to get totally overwhelmed with like—_affection_ for this prickly bitch. He doesn’t know Nolan, not really; this is like, excessive.

They make plans to meet at some bar Pat knows, near TK this time. He hasn’t been to it—ruled it out for excessive hipster-ness—but he literally could not fucking care less. It’s within walking distance to his house, and his bed, and his door, which has a lock, and TK has no idea what Nolan’s Addie-care situation looks like, but he’s just saying: Lawson’s not coming back until Sunday afternoon.

Twenty minutes before they’re supposed to meet on Saturday afternoon, his phone chirps. _Look sorry to have to do this_, and TK’s bracing himself—he should have fucking known better, this can’t be his actual real life, where he exchanges like, mildly spicy text messages with the big moody bitch of his dreams—_but can we meet at the Schuylkill River Park instead. Addie’s with me._

TK closes his eyes, the mental image of Nolan bending him over the back of their Craigslist couch evaporating. It’s—fine, it’s definitely fine, Pat’s a single dad, TK gets it, he’s not an asshole, but he’s been thirsty for this fucker for _so goddamn long_.

So instead of walking a few blocks to rub elbows with Fishtown’s finest population of tatted-up hipsters, TK climbs back in his trusty Camry and heads to the park. It’s not a particularly nice day—it’s fucking late November in Philadelphia, of course it’s not a nice day—but it’s not actively precipitating, so that’s all good. TK’s down with nature; Addie’s cute as fuck. Going to the park counts as a plan, too, even if it’s not _quite_ the kind of plan TK was thinking about when he jerked off in the shower this morning.

He gets to the playground first, settles himself on a bench and tries to give off _I’m not here to creepily watch your kid_ vibes. He’s only gotten a couple of dubious looks before Pat is dropping onto the bench next to him, all elbows and cheekbones and a heavy sigh. Addie’s streaking off towards the purple slide after the absolute minimum in polite greetings to Coach K.

“Kids,” Pat says, watching her scramble up onto the play structure.

“Kids, dude,” TK agrees. “At least she’s pretty independent for five.”

“God, you mean she could be _more_ dependent?” Patty looks horrified; TK nods to all the parents holding hands and refereeing the line for the twisty slide.

“Well, I mean, obviously. It’s maybe not like, the best, developmentally. But some kids need the support and some parents need to be needed.”

“I thought the point was to raise a like. Tiny independent human.”

TK shrugs, stretches out his legs, leans back with an easy grin. “So I take it you’re not planning to be a helicopter dad.”

Pat makes a face, mostly with his eyes. “I wouldn’t have the fucking time, dude.”

“You would during the summers, though. Seasonal helicoptering.”

“Too busy fishing,” he says, the set of his lips suggesting that he thinks he’s being cute. TK agrees; TK thinks his heart might actually stop, when Pat goes to push a curl of hair behind his ear and TK sees that his nails have been—very messily, there’s polish all over his cuticles—painted a glittery pink.

“Do you,” he says, before he can stop himself, “get manicures now, bud?”

Pat freezes, immediately shoves his hand back in the pocket of his coat. “Fuck. I mean, shit. Uh, shoot.”

“It’s cool, I respect a self-care routine,” and also Pat’s complete failures in self-censoring.

“Today’s kind of been a mess,” Pat admits, in his low, mumbly voice. He’s watching Addie go flying down the slide.

TK doesn’t want to pry, doesn’t want to be the _absolute most_, the way he always is, so he just says, “Yeah?” as Addie sprints back to the line for the slide, and figures Pat can tell him about it, or not.

He shrugs, and does in a bare minimum of words. Addie being Addie, bouncing off the walls; a fight with his mom about his _priorities_. He spits the word out like it’s poison.

“That sounds shitty,” TK offers. It’s inadequate but it’s what he’s got.

Pat leans forward so his elbows are on his knees. He looks like he could be any young-twenties dirtbag hottie, with his hair curling out from under a black Bauer snapback and a coat that isn’t quite warm enough for the weather. He’s wearing boots today, and the laces are tied for once. There are holes in the knees of his black jeans. “It’s just been bad timing, I guess. I was kind of, whatever. Figuring out some stuff, here, and then Addie—” He stops.

TK tries “Yeah?” again, because it worked before.

Patty just shoots him a disdainful look out of the corner of his eye. But he leans back again, and puts one long arm along the back of the bench, close enough to touch. TK resists the magnetic urge to curl into his shoulder, and instead starts narrating the action around the play structure like he’s calling the Super Bowl. Eventually Addie gets tired of waiting in line for the slide, and they go over to the swings, Pats pushing her and TK swinging alongside, showing off his best jumping dismounts and going higher and higher while she shrieks encouragement in her piping little voice.

When she’s done swinging they walk over to the dog park—or TK and Pat walk, Addie alternates zooming forward and backward in loops around them—and she drops to the ground, staring at all the dogs with an expression of naked longing.

“She doesn’t focus on like, TV,” Pat grumbles, “but take her to the dog park and she’s fascinated.”

“How’s the great puppy hunt coming?”

Pat scrubs a hand over his eyes. “We are not getting a puppy,” he says, in the tones of someone who has said this many times before. It is the most dad-like voice TK has heard come out of his mouth, and it is, unfortunately, absolutely doing it for him. “We are getting an adult dog that is already like, house trained, and isn’t going to chew up every fu—uh, everything in the house.”

“Support that, man. Just let me know when I send you the right Petfinder link.”

“My mom wants me to get a puppy from a breeder,” Pats mumbles at the chain-link fence. “But we do those calendar things with that rescue and like, those are nice dogs. It’s fine.”

“More than fine.” TK leans on the fence next to him, bumps him with a shoulder. A scruffy little terrier thing runs up and licks Addie’s fingers through the fence; it’s fucking cute as hell. TK wants to die, especially when Pat doesn’t move away, leaves their arms pressed together even though his cheeks are burning with a blush.

And it’s not sexy drinks in a hip bar, but fuck that, TK’s never been hip a day in his goddamned life. He’s hanging out with like, the man of his literal dreams (in that he has had literal dreams about this literal man), and he has a cute fucking kid, and they’re getting a doubtless-extremely-fucking-cute dog, and it is—more than enough.

So obviously the Flyers leave on a roadie like, the next day, and they’re back to texting. TK’s being a good boy, he’s keeping it in his pants around his phone and everything; but he can’t deny that he’s kind of losing his mind over it. Some time at the Schuylkill River Park—maybe on the swing set, maybe watching Pat watch Addie politely ask to pet people’s dogs, maybe the fifteenth time he failed to cut himself off before he said a swear word—TK had decided that, like.

This could happen.

Which is: totally fucking absurd, on every single goddamned level. But _Nolan fucking Patrick_ is apparently 1) gay; 2) interested enough to drive him home from _Kevin fucking Hayes’s_ train wreck Thanksgiving; then 3) go on a, a fucking _date_ with him to the _park_ like they’re in some fucking Netflix romcom; and 4) continue to text him, dumb shit like Morgan Frost’s distraught face when they prank him in Columbus by acting like the whole hotel is out of coffee, memes about fishing, slightly more realistic evaluations of TK’s slightly more on target Petfinder options.

“I don’t believe any of this is real life,” Lawson says. “How—I can’t—”

TK gestures at himself. He’s in their kitchen, making fajitas shirtless while wearing an apron that says, simply, GAY AS FUCK. (It’s the house apron; Lawson wears it too.) “Law. Seriously, who would _not_ want to get with this.”

“Not a pro athlete making five mil a year.”

TK throws a slice of red pepper at him. “Bro. Be happy for me.”

“I’ve decided that I’m pretty sure you’re being catfished. Somehow.”

“Fuck you, catfish this ass,” TK fires back. “And _don’t_ take my extra ticket for the Isles, see if I give a fuck.”

Law backs down when rink-side tickets are on the line. They go to the Isles game; TK and Patty fist-bump through the glass again, and then Kevin and Farabee skate up, and Pat turns the color of a tomato. Kevin pitches Lawson a puck, which he then gives to a child, because he is fundamentally a nice person; yells something like “What’s up Teeks and Teeks’s buddy!”, horse-collars Patty, and drags him back towards center ice.

Lawson tries, “Is Kevin Hayes catfishing you,” and then TK urgently has to kick him in the shin for the next fifteen minutes.

_going out with the boys tomorrow_, Pat texts him after the game, which they lose in OT to an objectively sick Mat Barzal wrister. Some real highlight-reel shit; it’s such a beauty of a goal that TK _wants_ to not be mad about it, but of course he’s still mad about it.

_Congraturitos_, TK texts, then immediately feels insensitive since Pats just lost a stupid hockey game.

Pat responds with 🙄 then, _do u want to meet up_

TK has never wanted anything quite so much, in his entire life. He makes himself wait until Law’s driven another couple of blocks up Broad Street before he writes back, _yeah sure that would be cool_, but he is damned sure not cool about it in the car.

Or when they get home, or when they go to the gym Saturday morning, or when they go grocery shopping. (He manages to put it on pause when he’s coaching soccer.) Law finally throws his running shoes at his head and tells him, “Go burn off some energy, you fuckhead, or you’re going to scare him away.”

TK’s taken dumber advice from worse people, so he goes.

Claire comes over for dinner and helps him get dressed—back into his tightest jeans, a white t-shirt that pulls over his shoulders and biceps, shows off the band of ink around his arm. She even coaches him through putting shit in his hair, because she is in fact the best, and he is in fact a failure at personal grooming no matter how many seasons of Queer Eye they’ve binge-watched together while Lawson heckles and pretends he’s not taking notes about skin products on his phone. The camo jacket is permitted again; a snapback is not. She and Law will be providing wing-person services, so it’s not like he can sneak it.

And then they’re on the way to Center City, piled into the back of a Lyft with Claire in the middle. Law’s too fucking big, it doesn’t really work, so she’s halfway in his lap with a leg over TK’s knee. The Lyft driver plays nothing but Russian techno, too loud for them to talk, and it’s one of those things that just becomes hysterically funny for no fucking reason; or maybe because TK’s nervous, feeling his heartrate start to rabbit up the closer they get to the bar, and his stupid brain needs something to catch itself on. They had some drinks with dinner, so he should be feeling more relaxed than he is—but he’s also feeling like, fuck, kind of like, this could be _it_, like his skin is buzzing all over with anticipation and the blackberry vodka shots they tossed back before they ran down to the car. It feels like a night out in college, almost, when the world was full of possibility and he didn’t have a fucking care in the world.

Then the Russian techno is getting turned down, and they’re piling out of the car, TK first, offering Claire a hand and hauling her out of the backseat. She catches a heel on a crack in the sidewalk, laughs and stumbles against him. For all the fucking good it does her; she’s taller than he is in her heels. They’re still giggling when Law’s made his way around the back of the car, and he wraps two massive arms around them, squeezes hard enough that TK’s ribs creak.

“Let’s fucking go!” he yells, and they’re going.

Well, there’s a line. So actually they go to the end of the line, and they wait.

_In line_ 😢, he texts Patty. _See you in a few I guess_.

_fuck that_

_??????_

He doesn’t quite have time to fully freak out about it, because the door’s opening and Pats is stalking out, having a word with the bouncer, then like, _beckoning_ them to the front with a visible eye roll. It’s a dickhead professional athlete move; unfortunately it turns out TK doesn’t hate it.

“I guess if you look like _her_,” mutters one of the girls who were in line in front of them. Claire flicks her hair and they laugh, and laugh.

“What’s up,” Pats mumbles. He and TK bump fists, do introductions, then they’re following him inside. It’s a wall of noise, a crowd around the bar and a DJ setting up next to a dance floor. The Flyers have staked out a few tables in the back corner, Hayes (of course) and a cross-section of the rest of the team: the rookies, Farabee, Frost, Aubé-Kubel, Provorov and his wife, other guys TK hasn’t met yet; and a mix of friends, girlfriends, girls hoping to audition for the role.

Law and Claire go to get drinks, and TK follows Pat to the back wall, since _propping up a wall_ seems to be his default setting at social events. Kevin bounds over to say hello, not seeming even slightly surprised to see him; sticks around until Law and Claire get back, then tidily herds them off to make the rounds.

“Is he, like—?” TK starts to ask, because he is fairly sure that Kevin has just thrown an extremely obvious wink back over his shoulder, but that is also not fully a thing he can integrate into his worldview.

Pats sticks an elbow in his side. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

TK rolls his head back against the wall, blinks up at him. “What do you want to talk about, then?”

“Ugh,” is all Patty says. But he doesn’t actually look, like, disgusted or anything. If anything his eyes are warmer than usual, whether because the bar’s hot, almost muggy, or because of whatever amount of alcohol he’s already had to drink, or because of—well—TK wearing his tightest two pieces of clothing.

And that’s all the invitation TK needs to start rambling, telling Patty about how he knows Lawson, the horrible techno in the Lyft. Patty sips his beer and listens, mumbles snarky little comments, tries not to laugh even when TK’s telling stories he knows damned well are funny as hell. TK finally gets him with one about Jersey Shore, though, when they borrowed a bunch of chickens from Lawson’s uncle’s farm, and then hid them in random spots through the high school as their senior prank. TK’s crowning glory was smuggling five hens into the staff bathroom.

“You’re a fucking disaster,” Pat tells him. He’s done with his beer and totally failing at not laughing.

TK’s feeling daring, his own beer long gone and his eyes stuck on Pat’s cheekbones, his lips, and he says, “You like it, though.”

“Not a fucking chance.” Pat’s blushing, though; TK can see it even in the dim light of the bar. And he’s not going anywhere. If anything he’s edging in tighter, leaning right down to TK’s ear to ask, “Do you want another drink,” close enough that TK can feel the heat of his breath.

“Dunno, hotshot. You buying?” He flashes Pats his cheekiest grin.

Patty buys the drinks, fingers hot on TK’s lower back as they head for the bar. There’s a crush of people so it takes a while for them to get served. TK doesn’t mind at all. It’s crowded enough that they’re pressed even closer together while they wait, hip to hip. TK wants them to be touching everywhere; TK wants them to be naked, behind a closed door. Maybe Pat sees it on his face because he’s blushing again, or maybe he never quite stopped—TK realizes his fingers are playing with one of his belt loops, twitchy and automatic under the screen of the crowd. If he moved his index finger half an inch higher, he’d be touching Patty’s skin. It makes his own skin feel tight, too small, makes him want to push his face into Pat’s shoulder and breathe him in.

Pat hooks an arm around his neck, pulling him in under his arm. TK’s heart is going to beat out of his chest. “Stop fidgeting.”

“No,” TK answers. He wonders if Pat can feel his heart hammering through his ribs. They’re that close, and he moves his finger that extra half an inch, under Patty’s shirt. His skin is smooth, a little sweaty, laid over hard muscle and bone.

“You’re a fucking menace.” He doesn’t move, though, not until the bartender shoves two beers in plastic cups at them, foam sloshing over the sides. TK licks it off, deliberate, letting his eyes catch on Pat’s. “Jesus,” he says, “I can’t take you anywhere.”

“I can think of somewhere,” TK tells him, watches the skin on his cheeks get darker and his eyes get hotter. “If, you know. That’s a thing. That could be happening.”

Patty rolls his eyes and swallows a mouthful of beer. He says, “Whatever,” but his arm is tight around TK’s hips by then, not letting go.

To TK’s extreme regret, they do not leave immediately. Well, it’s actually really fun: they go back to the Flyers corner, Pat’s hand still hot on his lower back like he doesn’t care who sees it. Claire and Provorov’s wife have their blonde heads slanted towards each other, and Lawson’s talking to Kevin about something, punctuated by occasional guffaws of laughter and expansive hand gestures. TK’s pretty sure he and Patty both give _that_ whole situation identical apprehensive looks, and TK’s ready to wade in and figure out what the fuck _those two_ apparently have in common. He’s starting to head over, actually, nip _that_ shit in the bud ASAP, but then he hits a point of resistance.

Patty’s back to propping up his stupid piece of wall, and he’s holding onto TK’s belt loop. TK would let Pats tow him anywhere in the world by his goddamned belt loop, he decides. To like, the middle of the Gobi Desert. Antarctica. Winnipeg in February, which is probably the same as Antarctica, and he tells Pat that, bouncing up on the balls of his feet to reach his ear.

“Fuck you, it is not,” and then they’re arguing about Canadian weather patterns, whether Canada has penguins, what kind of penguin is the cutest, which Netflix nature documentary has the most heartbreaking scenes of penguin death.

“Seals are terrorists!” TK yells, stabbing one finger into Pat’s chest to punctuate this extremely important point. “Like, the _cutest_ terrorists! But they are terrorists! Save the adolescent penguins!”

Patty isn’t doing a great job of pretending not to laugh by then, his eyes almost squeezed shut and his cheeks all crinkled up. He almost, but not quite, has dimples: as if his genes wanted to go that way, and then his brain willed them back out of existence. TK could look at him forever, probably, and not get sick of one single thing about his face.

Their beers are gone by then, and TK asks “Hey, do you want to dance?” because he’s never stopped buzzing, and people are out on the dance floor now—even some of the Flyers. Aubé-Kubel and the rookies are whooping it up with their hands in the air.

Pats looks horrified. Spits out a flat, “No.”

“I’m a good dancer. Really, I promise.”

“I don’t believe that.”

They never disentangled themselves all the way, not even in the middle of their extremely serious fight about the relative cuteness:murder ratio of baby leopard seals. Pat’s hot against his side, all muscle and the smell of clean sweat, wearing those black jeans with the rips in the knees and a faded t-shirt with some indie band logo on the front. Neutral Milk Hotel, whatever, TK’s never heard of them, but he could like them, probably, or at least come up with a funny way to trash-talk them instead of just sticking his fingers in his ears and yelling “boo hoo I’m _sad_!” at the top of his lungs, the way he does when Lawson’s listening to his emotional-boys-with-guitars shit. He taps the logo, feels muscle and bone under his fingertip. “Would you dance if we were at this fucking band’s concert?”

“It’s not a band you’d like, dance to.”

“Yeah, so, this is a club and they are playing—” he pauses, listens, “a Selena Gomez remix that kind of whips, so. I would honor not-dancing at your like, coffee house open mic night, so like. You should honor dancing at this hot-ass bar.”

“Not a chance.”

“Okay,” TK says, “you can stand there, look hot, and I can do all the work,” and if that comes out flirty, fine: he means it to.

And Pat gets the subtext. Well, it’s not subtext if TK’s being that blatant. So okay, Pat gets the _point_, because his hand tightens on TK’s hip, and he doesn’t let go when TK starts moving towards the dance floor. Only this time he follows.

Okay, at least as far as one of the tables, where he picks up a cup of water and chugs the whole thing before TK can warn him about the dangers of leaving your beverage unattended in a fucking nightclub. TK’s distracted anyway, looking at the movement of his throat as he swallows, tracking a drop of water running down from the corner of his mouth.

“Fuck you, I have to stay hydrated,” he mumbles, blushing like fire when he sees TK watching him. “For like,” and he gestures at his head.

“You can drink water in front of me any day of the fucking week, dude,” TK tells him. “Just don’t get roofied from your mystery drink.”

“I’m not getting roofied, Jesus.” He’s all offended, like Going Out Safety 101 doesn’t apply to big, bad NHL players.

Kevin bounds over before the argument—is it even an argument if TK is so _clearly_, objectively _right_—can escalate. “Dancing, am I right? Teeks, you gonna get this asshole out on the floor for once in his lame fucking life?”

TK grins. “You know it,” and Pat’s behind him grumbling _I never agreed to that shit_ but it doesn’t matter because TK’s got him around the wrist and then he’s dragging him along behind Kevin and Law, and Pat’s not resisting. He’s definitely big enough that TK would have to try—like, really _work_—to move him if he didn’t want to be moved. And that’s a hot thought, how much _bigger_ he is. TK’s thought about it before, obviously, he’s not fucking blind to the appeal, but it’s one thing to be touching himself in the dark about it and totally another to be pulling Patty’s hands down to his hips, backing himself up against the spread of his chest, feeling the exact place on his shoulder where TK’s head hits when he leans it back and grins up at him.

The hyper rookies whoop when the new arrivals get to the dance floor, but nobody’s paying attention to them, not really. Well, maybe Kevin, but he’s like, _smirking_ about it and Pat’s taking a hand off TK’s body to flip him off, before he puts it right back, fingers digging into the point of his hipbone through his t-shirt; and TK doesn’t have eyes on Law and Claire at this precise second, but fine, they’re probably paying attention too, unless they’re already making out.

But TK would rather be thinking about Nolan’s hands all over him, feeling the pulse of the music and the blood pumping under his skin in all the places they’re touching.

“Shit,” Pat says, when TK starts moving, “ohh, shit,” because TK knows what he’s doing. His plan—inasmuch as he had a plan—would have been to keep it light, make it funny. But now that they’re out here all he can think about is how he absolutely cannot _survive_ another night without Nolan fucking him, how he will in fact die if Nolan isn’t putting those possessive hands all over his body without a layer of clothing in between. So basically: it does not stay light. It gets heavy and sweaty, the thud of the beat and the flash of the lights, getting bumped by the people next to them but it doesn’t matter, pushes them closer and closer: Nolan’s hand a weight on his lower belly, TK reaching back to dig his fingers into the sweaty hair at the base of Nolan’s neck.

They last like, two songs, maybe three, and then it’s Nolan’s turn to be dragging _him_: back to get their coats, TK asking “don’t you need to like, say goodbye to people,” Nolan answering “do you really think that’s what I want to be doing right now” and the way he says it, the heat in his eyes and the heavy weight of his hands, the bulge that TK can see, that TK fucking _felt_ in the front of those tight black jeans: yeah, TK knows what he’d rather be doing instead.

Pat gets a Lyft to TK’s place and it is literally all TK can do to keep from jumping him in the back of like, some fucking dude’s Ford Escape. He distracts himself by remembering to text Law a belated _dipped out with Pat see you later_, reading the response 😲 _shocker!! have fun & spare me the details. going to Claire’s tonight_. TK talks and he honestly don’t know what the fuck he’s saying—just, words, lots of words, because if he lets himself stop he’s going to be crawling into Nolan’s lap in front of the Lyft driver and all the traffic at this fucking stoplight on 5th Street and God himself. Nolan’s looking out of the window, cheeks flushed, sweaty curls, patchy stubble, his hands dug deep into the pockets of his coat like he doesn’t trust himself to take them back out.

Then they’re stumbling up the stairs to TK’s apartment. TK drops his keys, once, then twice, because Pat’s crowding up against him and he’s just—massive in the tiny space at the top of their landing.

“Give me those,” he growls.

“It’s tricky,” TK says, because it is—there’s a specific sequence of jiggles and pulls to get the deadbolt unlocked. His drunk ass has been defeated by it before, but never with the stakes this high. Which is to say, if the door isn’t open in the next ten seconds, he’s dropping to his knees right fucking here.

Pat’s swearing until he gets the door open, though, and pushes TK through it. Then he’s—there, in the familiar space of TK’s living room: mismatched furniture, their green Craigslist couch. It’s—overwhelming, actually. TK feels a spike of nerves, even through the numbing layers of alcohol and arousal.

“Do you want some water, or,” he asks.

Pat blinks, blushes. “Okay, yeah.”

TK gets them water and they sit on the couch and drink it. It’s—not awkward, exactly, even though it kind of is. Pat’s looking down at the pint glass TK got at some community 5k in State College, turning it around with his long fingers; TK’s just trying to breathe through it. He wishes he’d turned on the TV, or some music, or something. It’s quiet and he doesn’t like it and usually he’d just start talking, but he’s still feeling all stupidly nervous, Nolan Patrick sitting in his living room at 12:45 a.m., blue eyes taking in the drafty windows, the half-broken blinds, the shitty furniture, the basketball hoop duct taped to the back of the bathroom door. It’s clean, at least, and they _could_ have nicer shit but spending money on like, end tables that match just never quite seems worth it when TK’s got loans and Lawson’s quietly started saving for a big fucking diamond, even if he doesn’t talk about it.

But whatever the reasoning behind the TV stand that they pulled out of a literal dumpster, it’s a long fucking way away from Kevin’s penthouse, or whatever townhouse 5 million AAV buys in Rittenhouse Square.

TK bites his lip. It’s like his eyes are magnetized, pulling due north to the lines of Patty’s face. He’s still wearing his coat. They both are. TK sets down his water, the clink of the glass against the glass coffee table from Lawson’s grandma’s house loud in the quiet between them, and sets his numb fingers to unzipping his coat. Nolan’s still staring at his water, like the logo of the Paterno Family Beaver Stadium Run is so fucking fascinating.

“So do you—run?” Pats asks him, finally.

“Yeah. I started in college. It’s like—calming, or whatever.”

Pat makes a face. “Nah.”

“You’re a professional athlete. You do cardio for a living.”

“Running sucks, though.”

“’Cause skating is _so_ different.”

“I like to go fast.”

“So you’re saying I’m like, slow.” TK grins at him. “Fuck you, dude. Your pickup game needs some work.”

Nolan rolls his eyes, shoves him. “Fuck _you_. We’re here, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, I guess.” TK’s still grinning: they really fucking are, aren’t they? Pat’s sitting on his couch, with his boat-sized feet propped up on Lawson’s dead grandma’s coffee table. It has a glass top with little frosted like, curlicues and flowers and shit, and a messy stack of release forms from the middle school soccer team, and a few empty cans from before they went out for the night. Somehow that—Pat’s feet on his coffee table, his sloppily-tied suede Vans—makes it real, again. “Take off your damned coat, asshole, or are you going somewhere.”

The coat comes off, and the waters go on the coffee table, and then TK’s thinking about queuing up a playlist on his phone—they’ve got a Bluetooth speaker, they’re not actually trash—when Pat makes a noise, and grabs the front of his t-shirt, and kisses him.

And to be _totally_ honest, TK’s had better first kisses; he wasn’t ready, he was thinking about Spotify, or asking if Pats wanted to shoot some zombies, but then it’s—happening, ready or not, here he comes. Their noses bump; when Patty hauls him in teeth hit TK’s lower lip in a way that’s less like _fuck yeah_ and more like _shit, physics!_

“Shit, are you okay,” Pat’s asking into the corner of TK’s mouth, his voice all low and rumbly, and yeah, of course TK’s doing fine, how the fuck could he not be.

“Fuck yeah, get back here,” then they’re kissing again. It goes from zero to 60 as soon as they get the angle right: Pat’s tongue is in his mouth, TK’s finally got a hand tangled into his hair, all the way, the way he’s wanted since the first time he saw him; Pat’s hands scrabbling at the bottom of his t-shirt, fingernails on the skin of his belly, dragging against the trail of hair under his navel. TK didn’t think Patty would feel so, so _desperate_ for it, panting against his neck, yanking at his shirt, sucking on his tongue with his eyes squeezed shut and that fucking blush spreading down his throat.

TK gets a hand on him because he just can’t resist any longer. Pat’s entire body freezes and TK’s gasping out, “Is this okay,” their lips still dragging together. Patty bites his lower lip like he means it this time, growls “why the fuck are you _stopping_,” while he yanks TK’s shirt off, sucks on his collarbone as TK fumbles at his jeans. They’re too damned tight to come off easily and he only gets them halfway down Pat’s thighs before he’s spitting in his hand, reaching into his briefs. He’s uncut and the easy slide of his foreskin makes everything in TK’s brain turn into white noise.

Nolan flushes down to the neck of his t-shirt when he comes. TK wants to know if it goes all the way down his chest, too—next time, yeah, they’ll be naked in bed, do it properly. TK wants to see him pink all over, TK wants to make him scream.

This time, TK licks the come off his hand. Makes it showy, watches Pat’s spent red cock twitch again.

“Fuck,” is all he says. Then, “Jesus, come _here_,” like eleven inches is too far away. TK’s jeans hit the floor and then Pat’s shoving him over backward on the couch, nipping at his lower lip, his neck, when he touches him. He’s heavy and his hand is _huge_ and TK’s orgasm hits him hard out of left field, this full-body surge that leaves him gasping into Patty’s hair and digging his nails into his shoulders, under his rucked-up shirt.

They look at each other, panting the same air. Patty’s still got his shirt on and his stupid jeans are shoved halfway down his thighs and his mouth is wet, bruised-looking. TK has a leg wrapped around his hips and he uses it to drag Pat the rest of the way down, collapsing onto his chest with a muffled kind of _oof_. He thinks he might be in love with the way Patty’s hair feels when he runs a hand through it, even if it’s sweaty, even when he hits a tangle.

“That was nice,” TK says, because he’s stupid, he’s thinking about the absent open-mouthed kisses Pat’s pressing into the side of his neck, the damp silk of his hair twined around his knuckles and the ridge of scar tissue behind his ear, where he got hit with that puck back in his second year in the NHL.

“Shut up,” Patty says, lips moving against the hinge of his jaw. Waits a second, mumbles, “You know it was better than nice.”

“Dunno,” TK lies. He figures it’s okay, Patty’s close range: he can hear the smile in his voice. “Might have to try it again to be sure.”

“Fuck you,” but there’s no heat to it. Patty’s kissing him again anyway, lazy this time, no urgency in the way he’s licking at TK’s mouth.

That’s better than talking, but they talk too, just nonsense shit. TK doesn’t want to ask if Pat’s staying the night—feels a sharp prick of anxiety at the thought of him leaving, but it’s not as if he has a, a _claim_ or whatever, and Pat’s got responsibilities. A game in two days, Addie, TK can tick off a list of approximately fifty-seven things Nolan has to do that are more important than spending the night in this shitty apartment in an “up and coming” part of town.

He stays, though. Stumbles after TK into his bedroom, collapses face-down onto his bed without even brushing his teeth, pants kicked carelessly in the middle of his floor.

They wake up all tangled together, in the thin December light filtering through TK’s blinds. TK’s got his head on Patty’s chest, listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat, and one of Pat’s arms is wrapped around his waist. The space under his blankets feels like a—secret, or something, the smell of sleep and skin at the place where Patty’s neck meets his shoulder, the way it’s just a little too warm, body heat and the fog of their breath.

TK’s got a touch of a hangover, maybe, but it’s nothing that’s going to stop him from kissing Nolan’s neck, the wing of his collarbone, the delicate skin at the outside corners of his eyes. His mouth, wet and soft from the night.

Patty pushes at his hip until TK’s on top of him, slips a leg around his waist and lets his gorgeous head go back against the pillows. He feels—pliant, warm and pleased from whatever he was dreaming. TK kisses him and kisses him until they’re both dizzy with it, gasping each other’s breaths as their hips roll together. TK gets a hand around their cocks, Patty adds his. It’s a little dry because he’d have to take his hands off Pat’s body to reach for the lube and that’s just impossible, okay, he couldn’t do it if he tried, wouldn’t want to anyway: sweat and pre-come can get it done, and it’s not like it’s going to take much anyway, with the choked-off little noises Patty’s making into his mouth.

“You gonna come for me, baby?” TK asks him. Keeps talking when he sees the flush darken on Patty’s cheeks, doesn’t even know what the fuck he’s saying, calls him _gorgeous_, calls him _baby_, tells him _yeah sweetheart, you’re doing so good for me_, _I want to see you come all over yourself_, until his hips hitch and he’s whining into TK’s mouth and coming, shaking through it and TK’s not far behind, how the fuck _could_ he be with Patty looking like _that_ underneath him, those lips and the soft little curls of hair plastered to the sweat at his hairline. TK kisses him again because there’s nothing else he could possibly be doing.

“Fuck,” Patty grumbles after a while. “Sticky.”

TK props himself up on an elbow. Pat’s eyes are closed, lashes dark shadows against his cheeks. TK can’t help but kiss them, soft and precise, until Pat’s growling and shoving at him and TK’s laughing, still trying to kiss his cheekbone, his neck, the inside of his elbow, the tattoos on his left arm, whatever part of him he can reach.

“God, quit it,” Pat says finally, getting a handful of TK’s hair and pulling. “I want a shower.”

“You _need_ to brush your teeth, is what you need.”

“Fuck you,” he says, like it’s a reflex. “Didn’t see you complaining.”

“I’m complaining now. You fucking reek, bud.” He’s grinning when he says it, but he kisses the tip of Patty’s offended nose, rolls out of bed and tugs him into the bathroom, digs a spare toothbrush out from under the sink. He doesn’t realize Patty’s like, doing a thing, having a moment, until the water’s hot and TK’s climbing into the shower and Patty’s still standing at the vanity, staring down at the sink. “You okay? I can let you shower first if you want, we don’t have to do it together.”

“It’s like.” He visibly grits his teeth. “This is so stupid, but like—can you not use anything with like. A smell.”

TK works at a very bougie educational institution so TK is familiar with the concept of scent-free even if he doesn’t have to live that life at the moment. Immediately he feels like an asshole for all their like, standard man-bottles of Old Spice bodywash crowding along the edges of the tub, Claire’s fancy shampoo that smells like literal flowers and that TK steals when the mood strikes him. “Shit, sorry. Uh. I don’t know if we have like—the right stuff.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” TK protests. “I don’t wanna like—” but he cuts himself off, because he doesn’t think Patty wants to hear the phrase _I don’t wanna like hurt you, with my bodywash_. He looks tense all over, the opposite of the loose, supple way he was in bed all of five minutes ago. “It’s cool,” TK says instead. “I can get different stuff. We can just be like, gross for a few minutes. And at least you fixed your dragon breath situation, buddy, that’s enough for me.”

Nolan makes a face at himself in the mirror. “Fuck you,” but he’s climbing into the shower anyway, so he can’t be too serious about it.

The two of them don’t really fit, certainly can’t both be under the hot water at the same time, so it’s not like, a sexy shower. Just a shower, even if TK does go a little bug-eyed when Pat’s standing under the water with his head tilted back, letting the water run through his hair. TK wants to lick every single drop of water off his skin, drop to his knees and let Patty come down his throat.

He wants a lot of things, actually. All of the things he wanted before, but now he’s got a whole new universe of things to want: now that he knows the sounds Patty makes when he’s about to come, now that he knows how pretty his dick is, how his lips get all swollen and red, exactly how it felt to be between his legs.

“This shower kinda sucks,” Pat’s saying. His eyes are closed and the water’s running down his face.

“Sorry it’s not up to your standards, princess,” TK says, tongue still a little thick in his mouth.

Patty blinks his eyes open, a sliver of heated blue. “I’ve got a better one.”

“Do you, really.”

“I do.” Pat’s smirking down at him now. “It’s big. Like, three showerheads. One of those rainfall things. Bench in the corner.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” but then he kind of—deflates, and TK doesn’t like that at all. Doesn’t like Pat looking defeated, doesn’t like that the thought of the two of them in Pat’s big fucking shower is like, depressing.

He papers it over because he doesn’t want to think about why that would be. “Come on, I’ll make breakfast. If you, uh, want, I guess.”

Nolan does want. His clothes are a mess and he can’t fit into anything that belongs to TK, so he ends up in a pair of Law’s Penn State College of Business sweatpants, his hair dripping onto the shoulders of a t-shirt that says Jersey Shore Senior High School Bulldogs Soccer. Pat says it’s almost the same color yellow as his old shit from the Wheat Kings.

“Yeah, it looked horrible on you then, too,” TK lies, drizzling olive oil into a pan. He may or may not have spent some quality time googling _processed food migraine trigger_ the other day. Just like, in case. “Avocado toast okay? I’ve got chicken sausage if you want, you can read the label and shit.”

Pats reads the labels for both the bread and the sausage, declares both fine. He’s a fucking vision, okay, the muscles in his back moving as he navigates making coffee in TK’s tiny kitchen, his hair halfway dried into soft curls around his face. His _ass_. TK knows he’s not wearing underwear. Wants to like, eat him.

“What,” he growls, looking up from watching the coffee drip. “You’re like, staring at me.”

“I want to eat you,” he answers. “Jesus Christ, have you seen your ass.”

“Fuck you.” He’s blushing down at TK’s coffee machine, before he looks up. “Have you seen _yours_.”

“Not a hockey player,” TK points out. Abandons the eggs for a second to step across the kitchen and grab Patty’s ass. It feels as good as it looks, and the way he’s failing at not laughing, tonguing at his lower lip while he acts like he’s trying to shove TK away—that feels even better.

He’s like, a professional athlete with responsibilities, though. So they can’t actually laze around TK’s shitty apartment playing CoD all day, even though there is literally nothing TK wants more in the world. Well. Maybe to get his mouth on Pat’s pretty pink dick, since he somehow failed to do that _two times_, which feels like a huge fucking miss.

Patty’s kind of—lingering by the door, wearing Lawson’s shit with his clothes in a plastic bag TK dug out from under the sink. He’s glaring down at his phone and his shoes are still untied, and TK feels all—soft, okay, towards this total fucking asshole. God help him but TK _likes_ him. Like, 15/10 would hit that again, but also, TK wants to make him breakfast and hear about his childhood and help him braid Addie’s hair. It’s been a problem all along, the like, irrational and slightly frightening level to which TK is into this fucker; and the more time they spend together, the worse it gets. Thanks to every single one of his shitty boyfriends from college, TK is fully aware that he can get way too into people, way too soon.

And like, he knows that, okay, but he just doesn’t _want_ to play it cool, here. He wants to follow Nolan home like a fucking puppy. Curl up on the rug at his feet and beg for attention.

But instead, he watches Patty fidget in front of his door, still staring down at his phone.

“Look,” Pat mumbles, finally. “Stuff’s kind of—tough, right now. But things should be better in the new year. For like…” He trails off, looking at TK and blushing hard. It’s not that hard to fill in the blank. “But my mom’s taking Addie to Winnipeg for Christmas, and then my sister’s bringing Addie back. She’s hanging out for a few months to help and stuff, instead. And that’s going to be different.”

“Oh,” says TK, blinking. “I didn’t really get the vibe that your mom was—” He stops. He definitely got the feeling Pat’s mom knew what was up, hadn’t gotten the sense that she like, hated him, or like she’d been glaring daggers at him from across Kevin’s Thanksgiving table. Didn’t get the same intentional blank slate he got from his own parents. And he doesn’t want to be like, _I didn’t think your mom was a total homophobe_, in case she is.

“It’s not like, the gay thing.” Pat sticks his phone in his pocket. “Or, well. I guess it kind of is, but not like—that. She and my dad are worried about how it would go if it gets out, obviously. And she’s worried enough about the whole Addie situation, like, that I can’t handle it, or whatever. So she’s just not really like, pro. Me—dating, or whatever. Or like, doing stuff that isn’t with Addie, unless it’s with the team. That’s kind of, I don’t know if you remember when we went to the park, but she thought I was going to do something with one of the guys, and then I said it was with you, and she said I needed to not be like, selfish. That I shouldn’t be putting energy into—whatever, that I need to be focusing on Addie and the season. But I’m kind of—sick of it, you know. Like, I’ve just never had—” He stops again. It’s definitive this time.

TK feels like his heart is going to beat out of his chest. “It’s okay, man. I get it. You’ve got a lot going on.”

“I mean, yeah. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to…” He makes a frustrated noise. Puts two fingers under TK’s chin, tips it up, and kisses him with his chapped lips. TK lets it stay a kiss: the press of two mouths together, the hint of avocado and coffee on Pat’s breath. He doesn’t hang onto his shoulders, doesn’t open his mouth, doesn’t do any of the crazy cracked-wide-open things he wants to do.

So it’s just a kiss, and then the sound of his door closing, and then maybe, maybe, more.

They keep texting as December accelerates, and holiday decorations go up around the city. The weather’s terrible, snow and sleet for days, gray crusts of exhaust on the edges of half-melted snowbanks. TK whines about running on the treadmill, and Lawson tells him to shut up; his kids whine about having to go outside when it’s cold, and he tells them to shut up in turn, in a professional, developmentally-appropriate way.

But through the nastiest of the weather—already freezing his ass off four miles into a six miler when it suddenly starts raining, because of course it does—it feels like he’s got this little bubble of warmth inside his chest. Pat’s—there, on the other side of his phone, or occasionally a headset for Halo or CoD, or the glass, when he gives TK tickets to games.

They see each other a few times, always with Addie. They go to the Please Touch museum, where she rides the carousel and TK snaps a picture of Pats standing next to her and her fancy horse, smiling down at her with an expression that is, frankly, both sickeningly soft and frighteningly attractive. They see birds at the zoo, and feed stingrays at the aquarium. TK’s favorite date—because they are clearly dates, even supervised by a very small, very active five-year-old—is when they go skating at the seasonal rink down by the river. Patty sends back the first pair of size 9.5 rental skates they bring out for TK, asking the bored-looking high school kid behind the counter if she doesn’t have a pair with blades that are actually, you know, _sharp_, like he cannot believe they would try to pass off this actual trash as a pair of functional ice skates, shooting TK a sideways look like _can you believe this shit_ that totally fails to land (since TK doesn’t give a fuck) and leaves Pat all ruffled-up and mumbling under his breath about rip-off skate rentals.

TK thought he was competent enough at skating—he doesn’t wobble, he doesn’t hang onto either Patty or the wall for support—but Addie stares at him in shock and says, “Why don’t you own your own skates?” and then “Your stops are _so_ _bad_,” while Pat tries (and fails) to not crack up behind her.

But other than that it’s not raining or sleeting for once, and there are big Christmas trees everywhere, twinkling lights and up-tempo music over the speakers and the piping of laughter. They get Addie a hot chocolate from the winter-themed lodge, and sit on a bench that’s slightly too small for all three of them while she drinks it. There’s a fire pit that’s dead set on blowing smoke directly into his eyes, and TK’s like—he is actually so happy he could burst. He feels it pinging around in his chest, swooping in his stomach, and he’s smiling so wide his face hurts.

“What?” Pat asks, when they’re walking back to the Range Rover. Addie’s drooping against his shoulder and TK’s carrying her tiny little ice skates.

“Just, whatever. Having a good time. Happy.”

Patty gives him a look of narrow-eyed suspicion, but he’s blushing, too. “Whatever,” he says.

_do u have plans for new years_, Pat texts him a few days later.

_kind of, Claire and her roommates usually have a thing_. _what’s up?_

There’s a long pause, which is fine: TK should be thinking about what he’s going to be doing with his fourth graders this afternoon anyway. They’re all cranky from being cooped up inside, but it’s spitting rain so they’re stuck in the gym.

His phone buzzes, which is, let’s be honest, way more interesting than scribbling notes about another variation on kickball. _You could come to st louis_, it says.

TK stares at his phone. He thinks about his bank account, and he thinks about the cost of plane tickets, and he thinks about staying in a hotel room with Nolan Patrick, what his flush would look like against all those white sheets.

He checks the schedule. The Flyers have a two-day break in St. Louis before they fly to Minnesota. That’s—a lot of time. If you are only interested in one single fucking thing, which is, making your kind-of-could-be-considered-a-boyfriend-maybe-at-this-point-but-words-are-scary-so-let’s-not-okay come so hard he cries.

_Yeah sure_, he texts. _Could be chill_.

So he’s going to St. Louis to sneak into Patty’s hotel room. That’s a thing that’s happening.

He’s glad about it. He’s not going back to Jersey Shore for Christmas, which kind of turned into a thing. His mom, on the phone, “Your grandpa’s going to be so disappointed not to see you, and we don’t know how many Christmases he has left”; TK, squeezing his eyes shut and remembering going hunting as a kid, perching up in a blind on a freezing-cold morning, frost and the smell of the woods and pipe tobacco from his grandpa’s old camouflage coat. It hurts, okay, wrings out something soft in his stomach.

“Is he going to ask when I’m bringing home a girlfriend,” TK asks, and his mom answers, “Well, you know how he is, he’s not changing now,” and TK thinks, _he’d change if he wanted to, _and_ maybe if you made him_, and he stays in Philadelphia.

It’s okay. It snows, and it’s pretty this time, a frosting of white all over the edges of everything. He volunteers at a food pantry, goes on long, quiet runs along the Schuylkill River. He drives to Claire’s family’s house out in Haddonfield on Christmas Eve to drink wine and eat Chinese food. He’s been over before, he’s met her brothers and her parents; they’re warm, easy to get along with, and too polite to ask him any questions. The ache in his stomach doesn’t go all the way away—he’s not sure it ever will, when he lets himself think about the word _home_: woodsmoke from the fireplace, the busy clucking of his mom’s chickens, frost crunching under his boots as he follows his dad out to the barn so early in the morning that there isn’t even the blue suggestion of light—but it hurts less to be here, in the Stewarts’ kitchen, missing the idea of home; than it would hurt to be there, living it.

He flies to St. Louis. It’s scary, a little, in a few ways: he hasn’t flown that many times before, and he’s never done it by himself, but he manages okay. Watches the city disappear under the wings of the plane, and talks to the woman sitting next to him. She’s going to stay with her daughter who just had her second baby, and she holds his hand and calls him _sugar_ when they hit a patch of turbulence in the air somewhere over Ohio.

It’s also scary when she asks, “So what’s taking you to the Lou this time of year,” and he answers, “To see a friend,” and she says, “Must be a good friend,” and he can only try to smother a smile and say, “Maybe, yeah, or like, I hope so?” and she pats his hand again, tells him _good luck honey, you go get your man_ when they’re getting off the plane.

The cab ride from the airport seems to drag forever, unfamiliar traffic and an unfamiliar skyline. The Flyers are staying at some fancy hotel downtown; Pat said it’s close to the Blues’ arena, and when TK climbs out of the car with his backpack and his carryon bag, it’s clearly the nicest hotel he’s ever been to. The lobby is all warm lights and marble and seasonal arrangements of pine and red berries, bright against the darkness outside.

He has Patty’s room number so he heads upstairs, sharing an elevator with two business-looking travelers in suits. TK’s glad to not be in whatever business they’re here to do—can’t imagine having to spend this part of the year _working_, ugh, even though they’ve got to make at least twice what he does. But they’ve got nothing on Pat.

TK’s out of his element, okay, and he’s never had a problem rolling with the punches but it’s just been—a lot.

It’s more when he knocks on the door for room 752 and there’s no answer. He checks his phone, and there’s a message from Pat: _dinner’s running late, go grab a drink at the bar or something and I’ll meet you_.

There’s nothing to do but go back downstairs, trying not to make eye contact with himself in the polished mirrored wall of the elevator. He gets a beer and tries not to think about his bank account, tries not to think about Pat asking him to book a ticket to St. Louis, Missouri like it’s nothing.

To him it wouldn’t be, and it’s a reminder of all this distance, all this space, between them; and then TK’s thinking about how he already feels as if he needs Nolan like oxygen, and they’ve only even hooked up once. Maybe he’s just, convenient, whatever, god knows he made himself available enough. TK can recognize the anxious spiral of his thoughts, can feel them getting away from him, what-if-what-if-what-if, but it’s so fucking hard to shut that off. He wishes he could go to the hotel gym, or the pool he saw a sign for—hold his breath and swim laps until there’s no space for anything in his head but the silence of the water and the burn in his lungs.

He can’t do that, though. All he can do is sit at the mirror-polished wood of this bar, and drink his beer, and wait. TK’s never been good at waiting, is the thing, and maybe the bartender picks up on his distress: he comes back over, leans an elbow on the bar top, asks him where he’s from.

They’re still talking when Nolan shows up, peeling off from a loud group of Flyers coming in through the front of the lobby. He throws himself onto the barstool next to TK, elbows and knees sprawling out wide: he looks dirtbag-big, like he’s trying to take up space, and there’s a flattened expression on his face that TK has only ever seen on his TV screen. Maybe he’s thinking this whole thing was a mistake; maybe he’s trying to figure out how to kick TK out without making a scene.

“What’s up,” he mumbles. The bartender asks if he wants anything; Pat stares at him, says a flat _no_ and nothing else.

“Jesus, _rude_,” TK tells him, once he’s retreated to the far end of the bar. “He was really nice.”

“Was he,” is all Nolan says. He’s still glaring, looking a little red, tongue on his lower lip like he’s trying to think of what to say.

TK finishes his beer, resisting the nervous urge to start talking. He doesn’t want to know what he’d say if he let himself start: probably some real needy shit, the kind of nervous spill of words that one of his exes called _just way too fucking much, I can’t even deal with you, Jesus_. They’d broken up that night. TK doesn’t want to be thinking about that but now he can’t stop: he’s always too much, he’s always too intense, over-invested. He’s never been able to play it cool a day in his fucking life, the way everyone else his age seems to be able to—he never learned the trick of acting like nothing matters to him, that too-cool over-it vibe that Pat gives off effortlessly.

It’s awkward in the elevator, it’s awkward walking down the hallway back to Pat’s room. The carpet muffles the sound of their footsteps, and the sound of the door unlocking feels loud in the silent hallway. Instead of calming him down, the beer just made a dent in his inhibitions: he wants to throw himself on Nolan, hang on with his fingernails and his teeth, beg for the kind of reassurance he shouldn’t ever need from another person—much less this one, right now, Christ, they’ve never defined exactly what they’re doing with each other, Pat could be nailing someone from Grindr on every fucking road trip he goes on—but he wants them, anyway, desperately.

TK barely processes the room at all: tasteful neutrals, a king-sized bed he can’t look at. He’s standing in front of the TV and still holding all his shit while Nolan stalks over to the closet and rifles through his suitcase. He pulls out a black bag and pitches it at TK, who barely manages to catch it with his free hand.

“Merry Christmas or whatever.” Nolan shuts the closet door and leans up against it, arms crossed over his chest. His jaw is set, tense, and this is horrible, it’s all horrible.

TK puts his carryon down—he’s still wearing his backpack, Jesus Christ—and fumbles at the bag. It’s a snapback, dark blue with a sheep stitched onto the front label. He feels—a lot of things at once, actually, too many things to begin trying to process standing in room 752 of the Hyatt Regency St. Louis.

He’d been scrolling through Instagram while Addie checked out the Mission Control console in the space room at the Please Touch Museum, and he’d seen one of the stupid hat ads that would apparently be following him around the internet forever. “When are those things going on sale,” he’d wondered out loud, and he hadn’t even realized Pat had been paying attention.

“I didn’t get you anything,” he says, heartbeat kicking up—like, it hadn’t even occurred to him to do more than send a merry Christmas text. And, okay, a shirtless selfie, which was something, right.

“You flew to fucking St. Louis in January, so.”

“It’s not January yet,” TK points out, helpless.

Pat rolls his eyes like the difference of a day is meaningless, which, maybe it is.

TK runs his fingers over the embroidery on the front of the hat. “Look, I—” and he stops, because he doesn’t want to say all the shit that he has rushing around the inside of his brain. But he has to say something, doesn’t he, instead of standing paralyzed on the other side of the room from Pat, still wearing his stupid, _stupid_ backpack.

“If you don’t like it you can exchange it,” Pat mumbles. His arms are still crossed and he’s still kind of—glaring, and TK wants it to be easy between them again, but he doesn’t know how to make that happen. Doesn’t know if that would be the right thing to do, even if he did.

He starts by taking his backpack off. “No. Look, it’s just—” but it turns out he’s no closer to knowing what to say than he was fifteen seconds ago.

They stare at each other. Pat’s going red, slowly, like someone’s turning up his internal temperature. His jaw is set and his eyes keep skidding around, like he doesn’t want to focus on TK but he can’t quite look away, either.

He finally mumbles, “Whatever. I’m taking a shower. Do—whatever, I don’t care,” and it’s blatantly a lie. Just, so obvious, and that makes TK crack, a little, or maybe a lot, because he doesn’t know what the fuck is happening in Pat’s brain but it’s obvious that he’s not like—happy. That he’s not totally unaffected, by whatever weird energy TK brought to this fucking city.

“Hey,” he says, and sets down his hat. “Look—”

“If you say that word one more time, I’m going to kill you.”

TK snorts. “Yeah, hotshot? I’d like to see you try.”

“Fuck you, I could obviously take you.”

“I’m scrappy,” TK says, which is only the truth. “Tougher than I look, bud.”

Pat rolls his eyes. “_Are_ you, though.”

“Fuck _you_, I obviously _am_.”

That puts a crack in the weird tension. So TK’s cracked, and the tension’s cracked, and he finally, finally just—gives into at least one of the impulses buzzing through his nervous system, and throws himself at Patty. Patty catches him, and TK buries his face in his neck. “I bought scent-free laundry detergent,” he says, because he’s smelling Patty—how he smells like himself, fabric and something almost like, _creamy_ that must just be—what he smells like. 100% pure organic free-range Patty, no chemical additives, and that’s got TK laughing, helpless, against his skin. He’s wearing a stupid _sweatshirt_ in _St. Louis_ in _January_ paired with socks and slides and it’s just—ridiculous, all of it. 5 million AAV and he can’t manage a pair of shoes with toes. TK’s got no money, but he likes to think he has common sense, at least occasionally, so maybe between the two of them they can kind of—work it out.

“Um, thanks, I guess,” Patty mumbles into his hair. TK feels his big hands getting themselves all twisted up in his shirt.

“I’d probably do a lot more for you than buy different laundry detergent,” TK tells him, squeezing his eyes shut. “Like, for example, I already got a different body wash. And I flew to this fucking freezing city in the Midwest. In January, basically.”

“I thought it was December.” TK can feel lips moving against his head, the rumble of Patty’s voice in his chest.

“Shut up, I was letting you win that one.”

“Yeah? What’s my prize, then, bud?”

TK pulls back, a little, just far enough that he can look Patty in the eye. “Kiss me, maybe?”

“Is that really a prize,” Pat says, “if I’m doing what you want,” but they’re kissing, so, TK doesn’t think anyone is really losing. Pat’s mouth is warm, his lips are still a little chapped, and his breath hitches when TK licks into his mouth. They don’t make it to the shower, because TK’s kissing down his neck, pulling off his sweatshirt so he can run his tongue along the arc of his collarbone, letting his teeth catch on the pink point of one of his nipples. He pulls in another breath, abs jumping under TK’s palms, and tangles his hands in TK’s hair to hold him in place.

“You like that,” TK says into his skin. He uses his teeth, he sucks hard, until Patty’s making that little whining noise and both of his nipples are swollen up and rosy red, slick with his spit. “Fuck, baby, you like it when I play with your tits?”

Pat’s blushing, furious, and TK has never wanted to fuck anyone so much in his entire fucking _life_. He’ll do anything: shove him down, eat him out until he’s boneless. There is absolutely no place on his body that TK doesn’t want to lick his way into, his armpits, the divots of muscle in his lower back, the vulnerable skin behind his balls.

He can do it, is the thing. He can do all of those things.

He looks up. Pat’s red from his cheekbones to his neck. His mouth’s a mess, teeth in his lower lip, hair in his face. TK’s dick jumps, just looking at him: he’s pretty as a fucking picture. TK wants to tie him up and fuck his face and TK just—_wants_.

“Get on the bed,” he says.

Patty licks his lips. For a second TK wonders what he’s going to do if Patty says no—there are no wrong answers, probably, because this isn’t going the way he’d have thought it would, necessarily, but TK’s always been flexible—and TK’s increasingly sure there is nothing Patty could be into that he could not get with—but instead he blushes harder, and goes.

“Take off your pants.” They hit the floor. “And your socks, Jesus Christ.” Patty smirks at him, toes off one sock, then the other. He’s way too much, framed against the intentional blandness of the hotel room bed: all of that white skin, the redness of his mouth and his nipples, black ink on his arm and thighs. He’s wearing black briefs and TK bets they’re wet at the front. “I’m going to make you come so fucking hard,” TK tells him. “I want to see you turn red all fucking over.”

“So are you gonna keep _talking_ about it,” Patty asks him, “or—”

TK can do both, actually. He’s great at multitasking and it’s not as if Patty’s like, tried to _hide_ how much he likes hearing TK talk. He should make _Patty_ talk, probably, make him use his words and tell TK what he likes, what he’s into, but—later, yeah. Right now he’s busy, narrating a path back down Patty’s chest, licking the wet spot on his briefs until he’s twitching and whining; pulling off, kissing his way down Pat’s miles of legs, biting at his tats and tonguing over the hard curves of his ankle bones. Patty has his hands twisted up in the covers, not trying to touch himself, being so fucking good even though TK can tell it’s killing him, white knuckles and tendons standing out in his forearms. TK tells him so, until he’s panting and whining high in his chest, these choked-off noises that make TK want to _bite_. And there’s no reason he should stop himself: so he doesn’t, the insides of his thighs, the ridges of muscle over his hips, back to the abused peaks of his nipples.

“Look at you,” TK says, lips moving against the thin elastic of Patty’s waistband. “I haven’t even touched you yet. Not like I’m going to touch you, gorgeous.”

“_Fuck_, get _on_ with it.”

TK feels the desperate rasp of Pat’s voice all the way down in his belly. Smiles against his smooth skin, the faint scratch of hair under his navel. “Say please.”

“Fuck you,” he groans. Then, “Fuck, _please_.”

So TK gives him what he wants, what they both want. Patty comes down his throat with a low, punched-out groan, hand a little too tight where it’s twisted up in TK’s hair; TK’s got two spit-slick fingers inside him by then, feeling like they’re sheathed in tense hot silk while he shakes through it.

After that TK’s not far behind him—how the fuck could he be, with Pat looking like that, feeling even better. He sits back on his heels and watches his come stripe up Patty’s chest, white on red. It’s probably the hottest thing he’s ever seen, Pat’s heated blue eyes watching him get himself off, his bitten-up mouth.

And who the fuck is he trying to kid with that _probably_. It _is_ the hottest thing he’s ever seen.

Patty tows him down with one long arm, kisses him all slack and open-mouthed. He looks like a fucked-out mess when TK pulls back a little, because he can’t seem to stop himself from wanting to _see_. His eyes are closed, making commas against his cheeks, until he wrinkles up the straight line of his nose and blinks them open.

“What are you looking at,” he grumbles.

TK grins, kisses the tip of his nose. “Your face.”

Pats rolls his eyes, and grumbles about it, but they’re kissing again, so. It’s really not a bad outcome, in TK’s book.

TK’s stomach is growling like crazy by the time they’ve pried themselves out of bed, then out of the shower (which is fully big enough to fit both of them, thank you to the Hyatt Regency). He puts on a giant fluffy white robe and lets Patty order him room service, some giant bacon cheeseburger thing that costs like $25. They curl up in bed and watch shitty movies, Patty ignoring whatever’s happening in the Flyers group text and one text that makes him flush bright red and put his phone on Do Not Disturb mode. All TK saw was the name Hayesie on his lock screen.

“So,” he says, exploratory, “is Kevin, like—”

Pat tightens the arm he’s got around TK’s shoulders. “Is Kevin, like, way over-involved? Nosy as shit? Gonna get his ass beat at skate tomorrow?”

“I was just gonna say,” and TK’s trying to be like, diplomatic here, kind of, “he like, knows. About—you. Us. Like, things. Like, with the Thanksgiving thing, and—stuff.”

“Yeah.” Patty sighs. “He knows. I mean, they all know, I guess.”

“How—was that,” says TK into the fabric of Patty’s sweatshirt, because he really does want to know, actually. It’s not like Patty’s out there waving a rainbow flag—nope, turns out he’s got Kevin fucking Hayes for that—but he also hasn’t really seemed. Stressed. About bringing TK around the team.

The shoulder shrugs under his cheek. Pat picks his phone back up, thumbing through Instagram but not stopping on anything long enough to read a single caption. “Better than I thought it would be, I guess.”

TK wants to say something, but he doesn’t, because he’s realizing that sometimes Pat just needs—space. To like, think, before he talks. Which is kind of a foreign concept for TK, personally, but he’s not like, unaware of the concept in the abstract.

Finally he says, “It was when I was dealing with the migraine shit, I guess. I had all this time to—think, whatever, and management was making me go to therapy anyway, and I just kind of had never—had that time before. To just kind of, wonder what the fuck I was doing with my life. Like, my family’s known for a while, I guess, and it’s not like I never hooked up, but I could never—you know. Just like, have a boyfriend for more than a summer. Do normal shit like that. And then that spring one of Hayesie’s cousins ended up coming out, and he was so good about it. We were living together and I was just—sick of hiding it, I guess, so I told him. Like, I hate him sometimes, and I would have actually fucking murdered him if we’d lived together like, one more month, but he’s a really solid dude, you know. And guys like him, G, Bee, Hartsy, Oskar—it’s not like they were gonna, whatever, put up with guys being shitty in the room.”

There’s a long pause. TK can feel the thump of his heartbeat. It’s calm, steady.

“Not everyone was great,” he says, finally. “And I’m not trying to be like—the NHL’s fucking poster boy for acceptance. But I kind of, just, got sick of being, whatever. Alone.”

“You’re not alone. Even though you don’t have your like, emotional support chihuahua yet.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Patty grabs a handful of his hair, gives his head a little shake. “Picked up a fucking, like, limpet. Also I will never own a chihuahua.”

TK’s heartrate, on the other hand, is not like. The most chill it’s ever been. “So you’re saying you’re like, stuck with me.”

There’s another pause. “Unless you don’t…want that.”

“Oh, shit, babe,” TK says, tightening his arm over Patty’s chest. “I want that so fucking bad. Even if you’re getting a chihuahua. Like, you are probably the only dude I would fuck if he had a dog that would fit in a purse.”

“Holy shit,” Patty says, “you weren’t kidding. You _are_ so fucking bad at moments, eh.”

“Were we having one,” TK asks, trying to hide a smile against Patty’s sweatshirt. “I didn’t notice.”

“Fuck. You,” he breathes out, then they’re kissing, carefully, soft and smooth, and okay, maybe TK’s no good at moments but _this_: he can do.

Patty blows him in the morning, all warm skin and soft hair twisted around TK’s knuckles, and TK returns the favor. Then Pats has team breakfast—which he barely makes it to on time, because TK can’t seem to stop kissing him, not in bed after they’re both loose-limbed from getting off, not in the bathroom when Patty’s trying to brush his teeth and TK’s busy with the heavy muscles along the backs of his shoulders, not up against the door when he’s failing to leave. But finally Pat’s holding him at arm’s length, trying to act like he’s mad but getting betrayed by his face: it’s open, kissed pink and pleased, and TK lets him go.

He goes to work out in the tiny hotel gym, orders himself room service like money’s not a thing. Kind of—lazes, for a bit, which isn’t like him at all but he doesn’t really want to go out in the weather. Like, sure, there is probably at least one thing that he could want to do in St. Louis other than memorizing Patty’s o-face, but he doesn’t know what it is and can’t seem to be bothered to google, “things to do in st louis,” so he just—doesn’t.

Pat comes back after skate and is trying to hustle him across the lobby on the way to lunch, but inevitably there’s a yell of “Hey, Patso!” from a very familiar voice. “You haven’t paid your fine yet, asshole,” Kevin doesn’t quite yell, going in for a fist-bump back-thump with TK.

“Fuck you, I did _not_ smuggle a girl into my room.” He’s blushing furiously.

“Don’t think you get out of money on the board just cause your girl’s got a goatee.” Kevin’s grinning, punching TK in the arm. “Don’t make me get G involved. Pay your dues, bud.”

“Like half the team has a girl here,” he’s grumbling. “It’s fucking New Year’s Eve. Go bother Frosty.”

“Rules are rules, dude.” Kevin shrugs. “And Frosty already paid up, plus extra on top cause Cube caught them holding hands after dinner. Hey,” and now he’s directing himself at TK, “you watching from the box?”

“Um, I don’t know.” TK cuts his eyes sideways at Pat, who’s looking even more awkward than usual.

“We’ll talk about it,” he says, then he’s got his hand on TK’s back and is like, propelling him away from Kevin, mumbling something about _shut the fuck up yes I’ll fucking Venmo the money you asshole_ over this shoulder.

They end up at some extremely hip juice bar-but-also-food type place. It’s got clean white walls and trendy-looking plants, not somewhere TK would have come himself or thought Pat would be into: but there he is, correctly pronouncing fancy vegetables and inhaling a giant grain bowl with chicken.

“So this box thing,” Patty says, poking his fork at a stray piece of diced cucumber. “A bunch of the WAGs are going in on it. It’s kind of a thing, I guess, for the game closest to NYE. They do like, spa shit and go shopping and then there’s a box and they all get white girl wasted.”

“Sounds nice for them.”

“I didn’t like, think about you—doing that.” He’s still staring at that piece of cucumber, and TK sees his cheeks start to go pink.

“Okay,” TK says. He’s not exactly sure what he’s feeling. It’s not like Pat’s trying to—hide him, but it’s a reminder that he doesn’t exactly _fit_, either.

“Like, spa shit,” he says. “It like. Didn’t occur to me that you might like. Want to do that.”

“I don’t.” That’s honest. Claire’s stuck a face mask on him a few times and he is not really a fan, to be honest, which she has always found disappointing. He just isn’t that good at sitting still or relaxing. Like, he’s better than he used to be, but it’s still not a state that he can maintain for all that long.

“And.” He stops. Finally eats the piece of cucumber he’s been poking at. “I don’t know. I kind of wanted—like, I thought it would be nice if—” He stops again.

“Spit it out,” TK orders, kicking his ankle under the table.

He’s bright red by now. “If we could. Whatever. Hang out. Instead of you being, like. Off. Doing shit.”

TK doesn’t bother suppressing his grin—he’s not Patty, it’s not like, a point of pride for him to demonstrate how Over It he is at all times. “I dunno, bud. Kinda maybe would rather have been getting a pedicure than sucking your cock last night. Or this morning. Spending time naked in bed with you—ehh. It’s been like, so-so.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he mutters. “I take it back, go to fucking—I don’t know where the fuck they are right now. Wherever. Not here.”

“Aw, but babe.” TK runs his toes up the inside of Pat’s calf. “I think you’d miss me.”

“Would not,” Patty snaps, but his stupid face is giving him away again, how he can’t quite keep himself from smiling down at his empty bowl.

After lunch, Patty has to nap. TK gives it a shot, he really does: kicks off his pants, climbs back into that massive hotel bed and lets Pat be the big spoon. It’s nice, it’s certainly nice, the weight of his arm across TK’s ribcage, the steady rhythm of his breath against the back of his neck. But TK sat around all morning and he’s kind of—done with it, certainly not going to be able to fall asleep like Patty.

He thinks he’s doing okay, being all stealthy as he maneuvers his phone in front of his face. But after a minute or two there’s a giant sigh from behind him, and a hard bite to the skin where his neck meets his shoulder.

“Ouch, you dickhead.”

“Stop fucking fidgeting.” This close, he can feel Pat’s voice rumbling through his entire body. So TK’s like, the opposite of sleepy, especially his dick, which is taking an interest in the bite and the sound of Patty right next to his ear, all the miles of that body pressed up against him.

“I um, can’t,” TK says. “Sorry.”

There’s a pause. One of Pat’s giant paws drifts down his stomach, which doesn’t really help the whole dick situation calm down. “Would this help.”

“Um, it would be nice, like, I don’t want to say no. To that, like, ever. But it probably wouldn’t make me any more like…nap-ready. Because that is a thing I’m like, bad at. Generally.”

Big sigh. “Jesus, what are you even _good_ at.”

“Deep throating,” TK smirks. “And I’m really flexible. I do a lot of yoga.”

Bigger sigh, another nip, and TK’s dick isn’t the only one that’s interested anymore. “You’re a fucking menace.”

TK resists the urge to start squirming, because he’s a hockey fan, okay, he knows how sacred it is for these big strong professional athletes to get their damned naps in. But also he just wants some like, recognition, for the level of self-restraint he’s showing right now, which he ends up telling Pat, who groans like he’s in physical pain, rolls his hips against TK’s ass. They don’t fuck but they do sixty-nine, fast and hot with their t-shirts still on, Patty’s briefs hanging off one of his thick, hairy thighs.

He sprawls out on his back when they’re both done, tugging TK on top of him with one big arm. TK kisses along his collarbone, gently up the tendons of his neck. He’s kind of obsessed with Patty’s skin, he thinks, the gradations of his blush against those acres of creamy white.

“I do have to actually nap,” Pat tells him. His eyes are closed and TK kisses the corner of his mouth. His lips are all swollen up and red, and it’s definitely the hottest thing TK’s seen in like, the last…okay, like, two minutes, maybe, because two minutes ago TK had just come and was letting Pat fuck his face.

Fine. He’s just—hot. Like, head to toe, _hot_, pretty any day of the week with his face and his flow and his body, but he’s got a specifically fucked-out messed-up smoke-show hotness when he’s all pink with sweaty hair and a wet cock. It makes TK feel kind of—crazy. Possessive. The thought of someone else putting his hands on Patty and making him look like this makes TK want to bare-knuckle fight, the way he hasn’t since that parking lot in high school.

“I’m just gonna go for a walk, or something, okay?” he says, instead of any of that. He doesn’t think he can stay here and keep looking at Patty, and not try to—whatever. Say some shit that it’s probably way too early to say, shit that’s intense, needy, fingernails and hanging on. Because he already feels like he, he _needs_ this, even though it’s been hard, even though there is absolutely no part of him that thinks it’s ever going to be—_easy_, trying to date a single dad who is semi closeted who is also an NHL player and TK can absolutely run down a long, long list of reasons why this is never going to work, why this is going to blow up catastrophically in his face, but then he sees Pat’s reflexive little frown, feels his hands tighten against his hips, and there is nothing that he can possibly feel other than, okay, yeah, sure, all of that shit.

But it’s going to be _worth it_.

He does roll out of bed and put his pants back on, but he only makes it as far as the hotel lobby. There’s a like—cloud of women wafting out of one of the other elevators. They are all tall and blonde and exquisite, and he realizes, after watching one of the tallest and blondest and exquisite-est blink at him for a second, that they are the WAGs.

“Travis, right?” she says, with a smile that belongs in an aspirational lifestyle magazine. “Nolan’s friend?”

And with that, Ivan Provorov’s wife sweeps him into the fold.

They’re on their way out for cocktails while the menfolk nap, and there does not appear to be a flicker of doubt in Leah Provorov’s perfectly-groomed head about whether or not TK should be joining them. He gets a few glances out of the sides of a few long-lashed eyes, and honestly he feels like kind of a slob in his regular-ass clothing from regular-ass stores, but clearly he has received some invisible stamp of approval from Leah and Morgan Frost’s girlfriend—he should probably learn her name—and someone else who says, pointedly, “Oh! Ryanne and Sara said how great you were with the kids at the pumpkin day!” and that kind of appears to be…it.

TK’s not blind. He can tell that there are a few, whatever, _currents_, but he can also tell that Leah is in charge of this group and that name-dropping the captain’s wife was not a like, _casual_ choice by—he doesn’t know who she is—shit.

She turns out to be Oskar Lindblom’s partner, and Alma is, in fact, totally gorgeous and charming, warm and funny, and TK’s always been good with people, anyway. So it’s not that hard for him to just…dive in. Order a champagne cocktail because why the fuck not, ask Alma what spa shit they’ve been doing, act like he knows what the hell she’s talking about until she pauses halfway through a sentence to say, “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” and then they talk about hockey instead, living in Philadelphia, the pros and cons of dachshunds and Patty’s quest for the perfect plane-sized dog, and how it is extremely clear to everyone but him that he will end up with an impractically large golden retriever and have to charter it flights to Winnipeg for the rest of its life.

They’re a couple of cocktails deep by then, and TK definitely doesn’t _fit in_ with this glossy pack of expensively-maintained women, but neither does he…_not_ fit in? Law and Chase have told him for years that he could carry on a full conversation with a fence post, and it’s not like he’s ever been inclined towards letting things be awkward. And he can talk about yoga and running, he can talk about kids, he can talk about cooking. It’s not as if there’s zero overlap on the Venn diagram.

Three cocktails in, and everyone is shrieking with laughter and TK thinks Alma may be his new best friend. Sorry, Law. They pile into Lyfts to go back to the hotel to get dressed for the game, packing an elevator and then spilling out like a blonde wave onto the two floors where the Flyers are staying. Patty’s still in the room when he gets back, dressed in his gameday suit: gray with a windowpane pattern, TK’s seen it on Instagram. It may or may not be his favorite, and he may or may not go ahead and do the thing he has dreamed of doing for the last year that it’s been showing up on Flyers social media: which is to grab Patty’s outstandingly good ass and kind of—hang on.

“Jesus,” is what Patty says. “Fucking hello, or whatever.”

TK’s busy nuzzling into his throat and really—exploring the way Pat’s ass feels in those pants. Like, he’s pretty sure he could spend some time on this. Fuck that, he _will_ spend some time on this. “Your ass,” he says, “is like, too much.”

Pat shoves him off. “I thought you were going for a walk. Did you just like, do laps of a bar, or.”

“Ran into the WAGs. We had girl time, drank some cocktails. Swapped tips on hot yoga instructors. Like, in both the hot yoga and the hot instructor sense.”

He’s rolling his eyes, turning away to grab a tie out of his suitcase. “Sorry I’m not flexible enough for you, or whatever.”

“Oh, babe.” TK grins, plasters himself up against the Patty’s back. He’s so—broad. There is nothing about his body that is not perfect to TK, even if flexibility is a great way to mitigate athletic injuries, and TK tells him so. Patty rolls his eyes, growls out _yeah oh man do you think so? Maybe I’ll tell the training staff about this amazing new theory,_ and TK’s still smiling into his shoulder blades. He’s jealous, holy shit, this 6’2 smoke show 10 with the face and the abs and _that ass_ is kind of grumpy about TK thinking the 7pm Tuesday instructor at CorePower is hot. Which, he is, TK is not going to deny that objective truth, but he is certainly no Pats.

He gets in a couple more gropes, kisses the back of Patty’s neck and goes to change himself. The WAGs are all wearing their players’ sweaters with jeans and black boots—yes, there is a group text, and yes, Alma assured him that they do coordinate this shit ahead of time, but that no one’s going to hold his footwear against him.

TK’s staring down at his own suitcase, kind of—thinking.

“What,” Patty barks, from over by the mirror.

“I didn’t say anything?”

“You’re like Addie or a puppy. If it’s quiet for too long I get worried.”

“I was just wondering what to wear.”

“Flyers shit. This isn’t like, hard, eh.”

TK thinks, _okay, fuck it then _and slips one of his neglected Nolan Patrick jerseys over his head. He can always take it off, he’s got the Lindros one and a random hoodie, if Patty doesn’t want him looking so—blatant. Okay, not that wearing a #19 sweater is like, a _sign_ of anything in particular—they are available for sale like, everywhere, it’s not as if only thirsty gay dudes named Travis Konecny wear them—but there’s something about wearing one. In front of Patty, in a box full of Flyers WAGs. That’s maybe, a little, much.

“I can change,” he says, when he sees Pat fully—staring at him. “Like, seriously, dude. Not a big deal.”

“I didn’t know you had that,” Pat finally says, in his deep voice.

“Kind of,” TK swallows, “a fan. Or, whatever.”

“What if.” Pats crosses his arms over his chest, kind of—smirks. He’s blushing, high on his cheekbones, and oh, shit. “You wear that. And then after the game, we come back here, and I put you face down on that bed, and I fuck you in it.”

TK’s mouth is—dry. Yeah. And his jeans are suddenly—tighter than they were a few seconds ago. It’s—fine. He is—fine. So fine that he has to swallow again, twice, before he can answer. “That would be—fine. Like, yes, that is a thing we could do. If you. Uh. Want to do that. Which like, you probably do, because you said it, so you—”

Fortunately for what little dignity he has left, after a full twenty-five circuits around the sun as Travis Konecny, Pat kisses him before he can keep talking. Kisses him hard, with teeth, pins him up against the wall and bites his lower lip until he’s panting. Grabs his dick through his jeans and says, lips moving against his ear, “Save that,” and then stalks out the door.

As a mic drop it’s like, pretty effective. TK’s flat-out—woozy.

He’s been a little—maybe _surprised_ isn’t the right word. TK isn’t exactly a newbie on the scene; he is well aware that just because somebody’s all big and mean, doesn’t mean that they’re going to be, whatever, toppy. Because life is a rich and varied tapestry, etc., and god knows TK got pissed off enough times in college when bigger guys automatically assumed he wanted to be on his back with their dick in his ass. But okay, yeah, maybe he’s been a _little_ surprised at how, whatever, _submissive_ this 200-pound pro athlete seems to lean, how much he likes it when TK orders him around, bites him up.

And TK is absolutely down for _literally whatever_. Would be fine topping Pats every day for the rest of his fucking life, and twice on Sundays.

But it would be a lie to say that Nolan Patrick shoving him face-down on a bed and fucking him with his teeth in the back of his neck, leaving bruises on his hips, is not like. A thought that he’s had.

Several times.

Fine, on a recurring basis, but only for like. Okay. Years.

“Holy shit,” he says into the empty hotel room. “_Holy shit_.”

The WAGs plus TK reconvene back in the lobby to head over to the Enterprise Center. TK snaps the group picture he’s seen on Instagram a million times: leggy blondes in hockey sweaters with their arms around each other’s backs, looking out over the ice.

“Do you want to be in one?” Leah asks him.

“Uhm, probably—not,” he says. “I mean, I don’t think we’re really—at that point.”

Alma snorts, which coming from her is somehow like, angelic. “Didn’t you hear everyone giving Natalie shit in the Lyft?”

TK flips through his mental contact list of Flyers WAGs, realizes she must be Morgan Frost’s. “No?”

Alma winds an arm around his neck. “This is called the wifey-to-be trip.”

“The—what.”

Leah smirks at him. “You don’t invite a girl on the New Year’s trip unless she’s wifey material.”

“You’re already a wifey,” he points out. “Both of you, right?”

“A couple of us come every year to keep the new girls in line.” Alma squeezes. “But I’m not a wife. Planning a wedding, just not my thing.”

“I respect that.” He totally does, but he also thinks they’re kind of—missing something. “I think it was just like, scheduling, though. Like, I was already off work and the flight wasn’t too far. I didn’t even know it was a whole—thing until I got here.”

“Pat’s pretty dumb,” Leah says. Alma winces. “What, tell me I’m wrong,” but she makes another little face and doesn’t. “But even he’s not _that_ dumb. He knew what he was doing. And you were already at Flyersgiving, right.”

“But Kevin invited me to that, though.”

They both wince. “Nolan’s _really_ dumb,” Leah repeats, and Alma doesn’t do anything with her face to try and correct her. “Sometimes he needs a little—help.”

“Is this helping?” he asks.

“I think Leah is trying to tell you that Nolan is in _wife mode_. Or husband mode, or partner mode, or whatever. He’s got the house, he’s got the kid, he’s getting the dog. Now he just needs—” Alma waves a pink-manicured hand at him. “You!”

“Okay,” TK says. He’s honestly not sure whether this conversation is making him happy, or stressed out, or anxious, or what. It’s a lot of things at once, that is for damned sure, and he is going to drink a beer—because the stupid NHL boxes only have stupid Truly—about it immediately. “But no matter what I don’t think I should be like, in that picture on Instagram.”

“Next year, then,” Leah says. “Drinks, ladies and Travises?”

The game itself is good. It’s low scoring since both goalies are on fire—seriously, why do the Blues always have such good goalies now, Binnington was obviously a piece of trash but TK can’t argue that he was an unfortunately good player, until all that racist shit ended his career—but there’s lots of end-to-end play, heavy checks but nobody taking dumb penalties. It’s 1-1 through the end of the second, before the Flyers get an odd-man rush and Patty tees up Aubé-Kubel for a slick little wrister.

They hang on for the win. Pat’s magnificent, flying around the ice like a wrecking ball. He blocks two shots and almost scores a short-handed goal with a minute left on the clock.

Everyone goes back to the hotel after the game, the WAGs making it to the hotel first. The Flyers have an early flight to Minnesota before they loop back to Philly, so it’s not going to be a whole NYE production.

“Not like the first year we did this. In Vegas,” Leah tells him, shaking her head. “But we were all young and dumb.”

“I miss Gina,” Alma says with a sigh, and then the menfolk are arriving. They’re all in suits and TK’s feeling underdressed, as the only guy in jeans, but nobody seems to care all that much—ties are coming off, Farabee and Hayes disappear for a minute and reappear in sweatpants.

Pats keeps his ass in his suit pants. TK certainly doesn’t hate it.

“Good game.”

“Whatever,” Pats grumbles, which TK is starting to figure out would be his default response to anything less than a hat trick.

“Poor baby, only the second star.” He tugs on a lock of Pat’s hair. It’s still half-damp from the showers at the arena, getting dots of water on the shoulders of his white shirt; Patty makes a face but doesn’t move away, in fact slips an arm around his shoulders. Kevin shoots them a thumbs-up from the bar and TK can absolutely tell that Patty’s blushing—can practically feel the heat radiating off his face—but he doesn’t drop his arm.

Pat’s pounding waters to rehydrate and TK’s already had enough to drink that he doesn’t mind joining him. Which is maybe like, a lame way to toast the new year, but TK just can’t find it in himself to care: clinking their water glasses together while everyone cheers in a random hotel bar in St. Louis, Missouri, looking up at Pat’s blush and wondering_ are we going to kiss?_ until Pat’s bending down and kissing him. Just lips, quick, nothing intense. Morgan Frost and Natalie are really um, going for it, while Kevin has Joel trapped in a bear hug and is aggressively smooching his cheek while he struggles.

“Want to get out of here,” Pats murmurs into his hair.

“Fuck, yeah.”

The air in the elevator feels like it’s buzzing between them, little electric prickles on TK’s skin as they walk down the hall. Pat’s unknotting his tie before the door’s even open, kissing TK up against the bathroom wall before it swings shut all the way. He gets a leg between TK’s thighs and hitches him up so they’re at eye level.

“You said something about the bed,” TK whispers into his mouth. Making out is great—he is never going to complain about Patty pinning him up against a wall and sucking on his tongue—but he wants more, okay, and he doesn’t care if it comes across like he’s a little needy. Because, yeah, he needs this: needs Nolan to shove him down and fuck him hard enough that he’s still feeling it when he’s sitting on that plane tomorrow.

Pat doesn’t say anything, just picks him up with no discernable effort. TK’s not that light but Patty doesn’t even seem to feel his weight when he’s lowering him down onto the bed. They’re still kissing; TK doesn’t think they ever stopped, doesn’t ever want to stop. He works on Nolan’s shirt buttons while Nolan works on his jeans. He has to pull back to get his suit pants off: and that’s a view, okay, his hair all fucked up from TK’s hands—when did he even do that, he doesn’t know—and his pink dick hard enough to slap his stomach.

TK’s chanting something like _come on come on come on_ because he’s so done _waiting_, and Nolan’s groaning, covering him back up with the weight of his body, getting a hand up under the sweater to play with his nipples. He fumbles lube and a condom out of—somewhere, TK doesn’t know or care, because his head’s going all fuzzy, white noise and a slick hand pressing behind his balls. He’s hot with the jersey and Nolan’s body heat, feels sweat prickling at his armpits. Nolan barely has enough space to get his hand moving because TK’s hanging onto him so tightly, but he can’t let go, he just can’t let any space get in between them.

“Baby, you gotta let me move,” Nolan murmurs against his lips. “Gotta get you ready.”

TK’s shaking his head when Nolan somehow finds enough space to change his angle, and presses down, and fireworks pop off in his stomach, sparking through every filament of his nervous system. He’s moaning, making all kinds of messy noises, probably saying some real dumb shit, and Nolan’s only got one finger inside of him. One, then it’s two, a little bit of a burn, open-mouthed kisses along his collarbone at the edge of the fabric. He’s already scratching the shit out of Nolan’s shoulders and he shouldn’t be, they’re going to be able to see it in the locker room tomorrow, but Nolan kissed him in front of his entire team and that has to mean something, doesn’t it? TK feels frantic, like he’s coming out of his skin.

“Come on, _please_,” he gasps. “Sweetheart, fuck, I need you,” and some other shit, he doesn’t even know, doesn’t care anyway because Nolan’s swearing and adding a third finger. That one hurts—his hands are big, long fingers and thick knuckles, and fuck, his dick’s going to be even bigger. TK’s probably leaking precome all over his favorite jersey and he can feel tears when he squeezes his eyes shut, what the fuck, why is he about to start _crying_, it’s just that he’s feeling _so much_ and there’s nowhere for it all to _go_.

“Shit shit shit,” Nolan’s choking, pulling out his fingers, “baby, was that too much, did I—”

“No,” TK says. “I’m fine, it’s okay.” He’s going to be horrified later, probably. Nolan’s blinking down at him with his hot blue eyes; TK reaches up, gentle thumbs on his cheekbones, the pads of his fingers buried in the curls of his hair, and pulls him down for a kiss. Nolan stays still between his legs until TK’s swearing at him, scrabbling at his shoulders and trying to push up against his weight, chasing friction and begging, then Nolan’s groaning into TK’s neck, thrusting back.

“Fuck, I need—”

“Please,” that’s all TK’s got, just, “please, now, I need you so bad—”

Nolan’s fumbling at the condom and they’re still kissing, messy, while TK’s still talking, just nonsense, chanting all of his _pleases_ and _yes, fuck, yeses_ into Nolan’s skin, until he gets cut off by the way Nolan’s pulling up on his thigh, tongue fucking into his mouth while he slides in, slow and careful at first, then harder until TK’s almost bent in half, pinned down and fucked open.

He’s crying again when he comes, probably, fucked up four ways to Sunday with Nolan’s teeth in the side of his neck and one of those big hands on his dick, shaking hard enough that he pulls Nolan with him. It’s—a lot, it’s just a lot, Nolan licking at the salt under his eyes, the empty echo of pain when he slips back out of TK’s body even though TK’s whining, pulling at his shoulders and locking his ankles around his waist. It’s probably too much, and he keeps his eyes squeezed shut because he doesn’t want to be seen: he’s always too intense, goes too far too fast, and Jesus, that was everything he would have told himself _not_ to do, not to be.

But here he is. He can’t help it.

Nolan’s kissing him anyway, stroking his sweaty hair back out of his face. He doesn’t ask if TK’s okay, just leans in, lets TK feel his weight, doesn’t move even when it’s getting kind of gross, too sticky with sweat and come and lube.

“Probably ruined this sweater,” TK mumbles into his hair, finally.

“I’ll get you another one.” Pat’s thumbing at his hipbone, nosing against TK’s goatee.

“Oh, bud,” he sighs, letting his arms relax from their death grip on Patty’s shoulders. “I’ve got like, three more.”

There’s a pause. TK cracks an eye open. Patty’s looking all—offended, or as offended as he can look with hair stuck to his red cheeks and the remnants of a post-orgasmic haze clouding over his eyes, pressing his lips together try to avoid letting his face do whatever it is that his face wants to do. Smile, probably, or he wouldn’t be bothering to hide it. TK feels a wave of just like, absurd affection. Or, fuck it, call it what it is: he’s in love with this big moody bitch and his stupid pretty face and just, every horrible thing about him.

He hides his face in Patty’s neck, feels the vibrations in his throat as he says, “You little fucker, you’ve been holding out on me with that Lindros shit.”

“It’s Lawson’s.”

“I knew it was too big for you. Your clothes usually like, fit.” Then he adds, “Your short-ass body,” like it’s too much for TK to know that he’s noticed that TK is an adult who knows how to buy the right size of pants. That TK’s like, an attractive person. TK’s willing to let it go, though. He leans back against the pillows with a sigh, lets Patty have his stupid little victory, especially since he’s kissing along his neck, nipping at the v of the jersey.

“I didn’t want to feed your ego. Or be like, too much.”

“You’re always too much,” Patty mumbles under his ear. “Jesus Christ,” but it doesn’t sound like he minds, exactly, or at least he’s sucking on TK’s earlobe, then kissing him again, until they’re actually too gross and sticky for it to be bearable. Pat peels himself away to deal with the condom and grab a washcloth, TK strips off the jersey and lets it fall to the floor next to the bed. He should brush his teeth, probably, but that seems like so much—effort. The bed is warm and comfortable, way nicer than his mattress back in Philly, and it’s easier to just—stay put, let Patty clean him up and then curl back around his body.

Pat isn’t quite—relaxed, though. He’s almost like—verging on fidgety, twisting a piece of TK’s hair around his finger, over and over.

“What’s up, bud,” TK asks his collarbone, bracing himself for—whatever. That was probably one of the more like, emotionally intense rounds of sex he’s ever had, and Pat said he was too much, and he doesn’t think Patty would kick him out of a hotel room in Missouri at one in the morning, but TK’s been wrong about people before, and he can feel his nerves kicking up. He buries his face in Nolan’s chest and tries to hoard the smell of his skin, that creamy undertone, sweat, a bitter back-of-the-throat hint of semen.

“Was that—good for you,” he asks, finally. “Like, did you like that.”

That—wasn’t what he was expecting. TK props himself up with an elbow on Pat’s chest, moves it off a gameday bruise when he sees a flicker of pain on Pat’s face before he can quite suppress it. “Course. That was—I don’t even know. Crazy intense. Sorry if I like, freaked out a little.”

Pat makes a face. He’s still got his hand in TK’s hair. It’s nice; TK kisses his wrist. “It’s not that. You were fine. Like, shit, that was hot as fuck, actually.”

“Sure was.” TK really doesn’t know where this is going, but it doesn’t seem like he’s about to be kicked out or broken up with, so like, okay. He’s okay. _They’re_ okay, probably.

Pat closes his eyes. His fingers are still making little circles against TK’s scalp. He lets himself lean into it. “It’s just,” he says, and then stops. He’s frowning, squeezing his eyes even more tightly shut before he sighs, and blinks them open again. “I dunno, guys usually want me to like—top, or whatever. Like, that’s what they expect. And I don’t like, mind, I guess. Like, obviously, that was hot. But it’s not, like…” He shrugs his free shoulder, eyes skating past TK’s face. “I don’t know. I just thought you should maybe—know. In case that’s like, a deal breaker.”

TK’s laughing now, even though Patty’s looking really offended. Kisses his nose, his cheekbone, his stupid little almost-dimples while he grumbles and pretends to try and shove him off, except he’s not, really. “Sweetheart. Patty. Are you trying to tell me you want me to like, plan on fucking you? Except for when you’re dying to get inside me because I’m wearing your sweater, and that gets you hot. I just want to like, check for comprehension, baby. Because that sounds like a fucking—Jesus. Dream come true.”

Pat sighs, like he’s so fucking put-upon, like thirty full seconds ago he wasn’t all nervous and shit about telling TK that he wants TK to plan on fucking _that ass_. Like that’s some kind of goddamned _hardship_, putting Patty on his hands and knees, watching his dick slide into Patty’s body—again: _that ass_—pulling his hair and telling him when to come. “I guess,” he mumbles.

“I’m so okay with that, babe. Like, _so_ okay.” He kisses the top of Patty’s offended little nose. “Thanks for telling me, yeah?”

“Shut up,” Patty says, then, “I mean, you just seemed so into it, and I didn’t want you to be—whatever. Disappointed,” and TK wants to go hunt down whoever made this man feel like he has to be so—apologetic for liking what he likes, and kill them.

But instead of doing that he drops another kiss on Pat’s nose, one on his lips, then settles himself back onto his shoulder. Pat switches off the light, and TK falls asleep listening to the steady sound of his breath.

His alarm goes off way too early in the morning. It’s still dark, everything in the room feeling like a cave, Pats making blurrily displeased noises into his pillow and swatting at his phone. He’s got an early flight for Minnesota and they were a little, uh, busy so he didn’t pack last night; and Patty is so pathetic and nonverbal that TK shoves him into the shower with a kiss to the nape of his neck, and deals with getting all of his shit into his suitcase. He might have a crease or two in a jacket, but he can fucking deal.

He’s slightly more pulled together when he makes it out of the shower, steam clouding out from the open door, a white towel wrapped low around his hips while he scrubs at his hair with another one. TK’s lying back in bed by then, ESPN turned on with the volume barely up: his dad always watched it in the morning, while he drank his cup of Folgers and ate a bowl of cereal, and TK doesn’t know why but whenever he’s somewhere with cable he turns it on. Muscle memory, or something.

He watches Patty get dressed instead of paying attention to the anchors, though, bullshitting about some made-up controversy with the fucking Patriots: underwear, a white undershirt sliding over his creamy shoulders, a white button-down, then his long legs going into navy pants. His ass, forever and always his ass.

“Sorry I can’t do breakfast,” he mumbles around a yawn. “Thanks for dealing with my shit.”

“It’s okay, babe.” TK’s flight’s not until the afternoon. He has no specific plans other than working out, maybe finally doing that google search for touristy shit in St. Louis. It’s the first New Year’s Day in like, a decade that he isn’t hungover, and he’s not sure what that says about what’s coming down the pike but he’s pretty sure it’s a very mature, responsible way to start the year.

“See you when I get back, I guess.” Pat’s got his suitcase, lingering by the door.

TK climbs back out of bed—and yeah, he can feel the phantom ache of Patty inside him when he moves, and that’s hot as fuck—and wraps his arms around Pat’s hips, tucks his head into the side of his neck. “See you,” he says, lips moving over the crisp points of his collar. Pat kisses his hair, gropes his ass—_thoroughly_, Jesus, he’s the one that’s got somewhere to be—and then he’s gone. TK feels like there’s a wire inside his chest that’s getting pulled tighter, and tighter, the farther down the hallway Nolan goes.

He sees TK still watching him from the doorway when he gets to the elevator. Rolls his eyes. TK flips him off and his face gets all offended but then the elevator doors are sliding open, and he’s gone.

Patty gets back to Philly on a Tuesday. TK leads his yoga club at school, then scrambles over to earn $30 reffing a beer league indoor soccer game; Wednesday Patty has a game, one of the nationally-televised ones so it starts late and ends later, too late for them to meet up after; they’re supposed to hang out Thursday but Addie comes down with something, and it seems like all hands are on deck at the Patrick townhouse dealing with _that_ situation; then Friday he’s up in New York for a game, not even an overnight but he gets back late, late.

_your schedule doesn’t want me to fuck you_, TK texts him during the Isles game. then, _sick goal_, because he just scored what ends up being the game winner.

“_Who_ are you texting,” Kess demands, but TK won’t let her see his phone. And then some hot girl she’s been low-key flirting with walks into the bar, so TK survives another day without having to give his nosy coworker a play-by-play of the Patty situation.

Saturday’s a unicorn day, though. Patty has nothing on his schedule: no skate, no gym, no video. TK gets up early, goes running, hits the gym to burn off some of the anxious energy he can feel whizzing in his stomach. They’ve been texting since St. Louis, kind of a lot, random memes and _good nights_, Patty sending him more than one rumpled shirtless thirst trap, with a half-asleep _good morning_. He’s off coffee and alcohol, he says, his head acting up from how irregular his sleep schedule has been, and that makes him grumpier than usual while TK feels vaguely guilty, because fucking until 2am the night of the Blues game sure wouldn’t have helped with that. But Patty’s a big boy, he knows how to handle himself; or he should, anyway, and if he doesn’t he’s not going to get there by TK trying to mother-hen his migraine prevention strategies.

Law’s in the kitchen when TK gets out of the shower. He’s making his own breakfast for once, instead of whining at TK or like, making a giant production out of taking down a cereal box, rattling it around until TK caves and fixes him something with nutritional value. Eggs! A fucking PB&J! Dumping shit in a blender! It’s not like breakfast has ever been hard to execute, but Claire’s been making fun of him recently for being a big helpless baby and Lawson Crouse does not seem to enjoy that. Hence, scrambled eggs and black beans and salsa wrapped in whole-wheat tortillas. TK’s so proud of him he could burst, and he tells him so, squeezing him hard around the waist.

“You’re in a good mood,” Law grumbles, shoving him off and giving his pan of eggs a doubtful little poke.

“Course I am, buddy.” TK grabs a coffee mug and plants himself at the breakfast bar, enjoying the novelty of Lawson serving him breakfast but mostly, a whole entire fucking day with Nolan Patrick. Well, and his kid and his big sister—which is kind of terrifying, actually—but mostly TK’s so excited he probably deserves a medal for not bouncing on his bar stool like a hyper little three-year-old. It’s from a curb a few streets over, TK doesn’t trust it to take much abuse.

They eat breakfast, and it’s kind of cute how like, proud of himself Law is for making one of the easiest breakfasts known to man. TK doesn’t even make fun of him too much, and he deserves a medal for that, too.

He’s got a backpack with a change of clothes and PJ pants, a toothbrush, his yoga mat strapped to the top because Patty’s sent him pictures of a pretty sick home gym. It’s like—boyfriend shit, a planned overnight, like, they’re really doing the thing.

“Use protection,” Law says, when TK’s done the dishes and he’s picked up all his shit, run back to his room for a forgotten phone cord, popped the black sheep snapback on top of his head. “Be safe. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

TK grins up at him. He feels—luminous, all bright and charged-up, and he’s going to calm himself down on the drive over to Pat’s, do some yoga breathing, get his shit together so he can act cool (or at least, cool-ish) once he gets there. But Law’s known him since he was six years old; there’s nothing TK needs to hide from him at this point. “Oh, dude. I really hope I’m gonna be doing a _lot_ of shit your ass wouldn’t do.”

Law makes a face, pulls him in for a hug anyway. “You know I fucking love you, right?”

“Dude, I’m going like, fifteen minutes away, for one night,” TK tells him. “Not off to fucking war.”

He pretends to wipe away a tear. “My little Teeks, all grown up.”

TK gags but Lawson just squeezes him in closer. Says, “Hey, I really hope this is a good thing, for you,” and TK says into his chest, “Yeah, I think it really is,” and hangs on for just a little longer, just a little tighter.

Patty’s house has a full-on two-car garage—in Rittenhouse Square, a fucking _personal garage_—and for some reason that makes TK put his head down on the steering wheel and breathe, for a second, then a little longer. He pats the dashboard of his 2013 Camry reassuringly. “You’re good enough,” he tells it, and also himself, and makes sure the sleek little Beemer in the other parking bay hears him say it. Where the fuck is the Range Rover? Does Pat have like, a _fleet_?

His anxiety is interrupted when the door at the front of the garage swings open, and a little brown-haired blur sprints over to knock on his window.

“Coach K!” she calls. “Daddy and Maddie wanted to know if you got lost.”

“Nope,” he says, unbuckling his seatbelt and climbing out, backpack over his shoulder. “Just taking a moment to do some self-care, like we talked about in class last week.”

She looks dubious, but grabs him by the hand anyway, tows him through a little garden—a garage and a fucking _yard_, even if it’s roughly the size of a postage stamp, even if the plantings are all January brown, and the pavers are littered with soccer balls, and someone has done a very half-assed job of setting up a shooting pad for hockey—and through a set of French doors into an airy little sunroom at the back of the kitchen. “Shoes, Adeline!” a female voice yells from the kitchen, and she sighs heavily and kicks off her little pink sneakers. TK follows suit, lining up his boots next to a messy assortment of shoes spilling out of a rack by the back door.

The kitchen itself is very bright and white, marble and blue tiles everywhere, a fucking _fireplace_ that’s crackling away with golden flames. Patty’s hovering by a marble-topped island that’s about as big as TK’s entire kitchen; Maddie is sitting on a stool sipping at a mug of something. She’s stupidly pretty, prettier than Pats, even, tall and blonde and tan even in January, even though he knows she’s been living in fucking Manitoba. These people: they are not even _fair_.

“What’s up,” Pat says, smothering a smile.

“This place is ridiculous,” TK tells him. He’s got his own stupid smile going, probably.

“Yeah, PRC really went for it,” Maddie pipes up from the island. Her smile is—wicked. Like, fully evil.

“_Madison_,” Patty hisses. He looks—hunted. “We _talked_ about this.”

“_You_ talked,” she shoots back. “_I_ said I’d _think_ about it.”

“Do I want to know?” TK asks Addie.

“I don’t know, Dad gets kind of mad about it.” She looks doubtful. “Anyway, Dad said we could only have a tea party today if you wanted to, and I really want to have a tea party, only like, with tag, and dinosaurs, so, do you want to have a tea party?”

“I only like tea parties if they have tag and dinosaurs,” he assures her. The Patrick siblings appear to be trying to kill each other with telepathy, so a tea party seems like the safest choice.

Madison calls “It’s really nice to meet you, Travis!” after them, and he can hear what sounds like a whisper-fight breaking out in the kitchen while Addie races up two flights of stairs. It’s cool; TK can let them do their thing. He and Chase get along well now but he remembers the days when they were getting into fights about literally every single thing. And he kind of enjoys seeing Patty as like, a bratty middle child being tortured by his big sister, not that he’d ever let on.

Pat’s thumping up the stairs before they’ve done much more than pull teacups and dinosaurs out of a closet. Addie’s room is as pretty as the rest of the house, creamy yellow paint and a full wall of closets, a cheerful pink-and-yellow rug with a swirling floral design. White shelves with brightly-colored picture books, an array of photographs and drawings on one wall spreading out over a little love seat and a rocking chair. He didn’t catch more than a glimpse of the rest of the house on the way up to this very important tea party, but what he did see looks gorgeous, spacious and expensive but un-stuffy. Kind of the opposite of what he thought a single 24-year-old NHL player’s pad was going to look like, if he’s totally honest: so far he’s only spotted one big-screen TV, and yeah, there did appear to be a massive brown leather couch out in the living room, but everything else was white and light blue. And there’s like, art on the walls. In frames. Some real grown-up shit. TK’s impressed.

“This house is gorgeous, man,” he tells Patty, when he’s finally looming in Addie’s doorway, looking exactly as harassed as fifteen-year-old TK used to get when Chase was really getting after him.

“Can’t take any credit,” he mumbles, heaving himself down onto the rug. He’s in his black jeans and an olive-green hoodie from another band TK’s never heard of, topped with a backwards Phils hat. He has on fuzzy socks and he looks more like somebody’s kid home on break from college than the person who—owns all of this. “Mom got a designer to do the whole thing. Well, not like, the entire house, there’s still a couple of guest bedrooms that don’t have anything in ‘em yet. All I did was give them a credit card and get out of the way.”

“I don’t think that was the wrong move.”

“Yeah, I mean, I’ve seen your house.” Patty smirks at him, pokes him in the hip with one sock-clad toe. They’re dark red and they have little hockey sticks on them. TK grabs his foot and probably means to like, poke him back, something like that, but Addie calls them to task and instead he kind of—holds onto it, stroking the soft wool over his anklebone. It’s the least he can do: Addie’s removing Pat’s snapback to plop a giant ribbon-covered hat down on his head, tying a messy bow under his chin. He looks a truly awe-inspiring combination of embarrassed, red circles on his cheeks, licking his lower lip and refusing to meet TK’s eyes—and simultaneously like he loves Addie to hell and back, like this tiny little tyrant is the best thing he’s ever seen in his entire life.

It makes TK’s chest hurt. Like, real fucking bad. Bad like, this is what it feels like to be sitting with every single thing he’s ever wanted in his entire fucking life. Bad like, just, _fuck_.

Fortunately the tag component of the dinosaur tea party kicks off before he can get 100% of the way up in his feelings. Just like, 80%, topped off with a T-Rex hat that Addie throws at him while screeching “You’re it!” and then they’re all thundering around the tea party rug and laughing, and laughing, and laughing, and TK wants to grab ahold of this moment with both hands and just—hang on.

But even dinosaur tea party tag can’t last forever. Pat ends up on his back with the T-Rex hat on his chest, Addie’s head on his stomach. She’s got one careless little ankle thrown over TK’s leg, and Nolan’s fingertips are just, barely, touching his wrist.

“What now?” Patty asks her. “Maddie said something about making cookies.”

“Can TK make cookies?” she asks, because somehow during tea party tag he became TK.

“TK can help,” he says, totally missing the look Pats was trying to send his way. It’s too late by the time he picks up on it; he makes an apologetic face and Pat thunks his head back against the rug a few times. _Sorry_, he mouths, and Pat rolls his eyes. Addie bounces back to her feet and TK lets her pretend to pull him up, before she’s zooming off down the stairs to the kitchen. She doesn’t get far before dad-mode Nolan Patrick is calling for her to come back and help put away the tea party supplies, though, and they only avoid a minor meltdown with a judicious bit of elementary-school-teacher gamesmanship from TK. Because it’s not cleaning up, it’s a _race_ to see which _dinosaur_ can gobble up the most toys and put them back in the closet.

“Jesus,” Pat sighs, once she’s zipped back down the stairs for real.

“She’s definitely, uh, energetic.”

“All danged day.” He shakes his head, ruffling a hand through his hair and smirking when he sees TK looking.

In TK’s defense, how can he _not_, and he maybe gets in a quick kiss and a quicker grope before they head down to supervise the cookie-making. Maddie sees Patty blushing when they get into the kitchen and fully loses her shit, especially when Addie asks them very seriously why it took them so long to walk down the stairs.

“Nose knows what he did, those cheeks don’t lie,” she grins. Pats puts his hands up to his cheeks and says, “Jesus, Maddie,” and she turns her smile on TK and says, “I’ve been waiting for him to date someone so I could torture him for _literal years_.”

TK is trying to stay out of it and not ask about the nicknames, helping Addie whisk together a bowl of flour, cinnamon, and baking soda. He’s not much of a baker but he figures he can handle that much. And he’s also not, totally, without tact.

They keep squabbling about random crap while the cookies go through various stages—wet ingredients, dough, scooping them out onto a cooking sheet. Maddie’s loud, funny, telling stories about growing up in Winterpeg and shoving Patty—or PRC, or Nose, or Nopes, or Patricia, and TK’s still not asking because he is a decent person, okay, he probably deserves a medal, actually—under as many buses as possible along the way. Or into snowbanks, maybe, because that seems to feature prominently: a tiny little Patty skating along after Maddie and ending up face-first in the snow.

“And you wonder why I like Aimee better,” Pats monotones. He has flour on his nose. TK might die.

“Hush, you do not.”

“I like Aunt Maddie better,” Addie declares loyally. “Except for when Aunt Aimee brings over her puppy to Grandma and Grandad’s. Or does my hair.”

“I do your hair,” Patty protests. TK does not think that is the hill he wants to die on. He sees her every day. There is a clear difference between her hair when Patty is in Philly, and when Patty is on the road.

“You can still barely make a braid,” she tells him, managing the impressive feat of looking down her nose at a 6’2 man when she doesn’t even come up to his hip. Maddie’s cracking up again while she sticks the cookies in the oven.

They have lunch while the cookies are baking—salads from the meal service—and Maddie asks TK about where he’s from, school, how he likes Rittenhouse Friends. Under the table, he and Patty have their ankles knocked together and it’s just—nice, okay, listening to Patty try to convince Addie to eat her tomatoes, even watching how Maddie kind of _smiles_ at him when she thinks Pat’s not looking. She sees TK catch her once, and makes a _hey what can you do_ face, a minor shrug of her shoulders. It’s clear that she loves them both.

They eat cookies and then head out to the shooting pad in the back with Addie. It’s cold—it’s _January_—but TK is outnumbered by native Manitobans, who all give him the disdainful down-the-nose stare that must be in the Patrick genes when he mentions that maybe, they could stay inside. TK doesn’t mind, really: red cheeks, hockey gloves, Maddie and Pats checking each other into the garden walls, calling each other for outrageous penalties while Addie yells encouragement.

“What do you want for dinner?” Patty asks when ball hockey has wound down. TK has no idea who won but it certainly wasn’t him, since he would rate his puck-handling skills a (very) distant fourth place.

“Don’t care,” TK answers honestly. Patty’s pouring a glass of milk for Addie, Maddie’s cracking open a bottle of wine from a floor-to-ceiling rack by the refrigerator.

“Addie and I are having a ladies’ night,” Maddie clarifies, holding up her wine glass. “We’re eating pizza and watching Frozen 3.”

“What if Dad and TK want to see Frozen 3, though,” Addie asks.

“We have to watch it first, to make sure it’s good.”

She narrows her imperious blue eyes, like she’s not sure at all about this line of reasoning. “But what if they want pizza.”

“I can’t have pizza right now, Ads,” Patty says. “So there’s more for you and Maddie.” He and Maddie seem to be trying to carry on a conversation via eye contact.

“You’re coming to ladies’ night, though. With me and Aunt Maddie.”

“They’re not ladies, so it’s just you and me, kiddo. I can give you a really pretty Elsa braid and we can paint our nails, okay?”

“Daddy lets me paint his nails, though.” She’s crying suddenly, her face all red, tension written in every line of her little body and tears dripping off the bottom of her chin. TK knows what he’d do if they were at school, but it doesn’t feel—right, to try to swoop in when he’s standing in Pat’s kitchen, with Pat’s sister and Pat’s daughter. “At least when he’s _here_.”

Patty looks like he’s in pain. “You know I have to travel with the team, Ads.”

“But it’s not fair!” she yells. “Grammy left, and Mom left, and Grandma left, and you’re always leaving too!” and then she’s spinning, running up the stairs.

Maddie pulls another wineglass out of a cabinet and holds it out to TK, while Pats rubs his hands over his face and stares longingly at the wine glass. “Shit,” he says, as TK is trying to figure out a polite way to decline a glass of wine that he really does want. Out of like, solidarity. “Fuck, dude, take the glass. No reason we all have to suffer just because of my fucked-up head and my stupid fucking choices.”

TK takes the glass and watches Maddie pour, watches Pat schlump up the stairs after Addie in his Phils hat and his fuzzy socks. The wine’s a dark swirl of red, and she spills a couple of drops off the edge of the bottle to splatter against the white of the marble island. It tastes—okay, like he wouldn’t choose to drink it, necessarily, but it’s alcohol. It’s kind of spicy against his tongue, like blackberries and hot pepper. Maybe it will grow on him.

“So, uh,” he says, not exactly knowing where he’s going, but he needs to start somewhere.

“It’s tough,” Maddie says, before he can decide on his next word. “Like, she’s really cute. We all love her. But she’s not always—easy. And I can’t really blame her.”

“I had a kid cry yesterday because his friend got a Band-Aid, and he wanted one, too,” TK says. “Like, he wasn’t bleeding. Not even a scratch. Still had a full-on meltdown about it.”

“God, I don’t know if I ever want kids.” She resettles her braid on her other shoulder and takes another swig of wine. “They just have so many—emotions.”

They drink to that. It seems like there’s something else she wants to say—these damned Patricks and their (at least occasional) ability to think before they speak—so TK keeps his mouth shut and tries to figure out why people like red wine. It’s making his mouth feel weird, kind of taste like pencil shavings.

“Nope’s been dealing with it like, pretty well.” There it is. “Way better than I think any of us expected, to be honest.”

“Look,” TK says to his wine glass, “if you’re trying to tell me like, this is bad timing, or that I should back off, or whatever, just like—maybe don’t, okay.”

Unlike Patty, she has brown eyes, and she gives him a slow blink. Yeah, okay, maybe he should try the whole, _think before you speak_ thing out sometime. “That wasn’t what I was going to say.”

“Shit.”

That makes her laugh, for whatever reason. “It’s fine, bud.” She fidgets with her wine glass, turning the stem around in her long fingers. “I was _actually_ gonna try to be like, encouraging, but I see that’s not necessary.” She shoots him a Patty-esque smirk. “I think it’s good he’s maybe got someone, okay? I know Mom was being like—not the best, this fall, and I do get where she was coming from, but just like. Dude. He’s waited so long for the perfect time to try to have a life, or whatever, and there just—isn’t going to be one. I mean, he could be playing until he’s thirty-one, thirty-two? Or go full Zdeno Chara and just like, play forever. What’s he supposed to do, wait until he retires to like, go on his first date?”

“I think he’s been on at least a _few_ dates,” and there he goes, not thinking before he speaks again. He hides his face in his wine glass.

“Eww, god, do not hint about having _sex_ with my _brother_! Princess Rosy Cheeks is a perfectly pure virgin,_ thank you_, and he will be until the day he dies.”

“Princess…Rosy Cheeks.”

“Oops.” She’s fully smirking now. “I wasn’t supposed to say that one.”

It turns out a three-year-old Pats demanded a princess name so he could be like Maddie, who was then going by Princess Brown Eyes. “I guess that was, what do you call it, foreshadowing?” They’re on their second glasses of wine by then—it is maybe growing on TK a little—and if he wasn’t trying to like, bond with Patty’s sister he would probably have to go lie down about that. Because he bets Patty _was_ a tiny, chubby little dictator, who totally _was_ determined to grow up to be a princess just like Maddie.

And then she pulls out the baby pictures on her phone, and any chance that TK was going to remain chill about this is kind of—over.

“What,” Patty asks from the stairs, “is going on in here,” because TK’s maybe just shrieked a little. In his defense, Maddie has just shown him a photo of the two of them in full princess regalia. Pat might be wearing—lipstick? Which is tooth-rottingly adorable on a three-year-old and kind of—_devastating_ to think about on the twenty-four-year-old version, with the lips and the skin. Probably not with the sulky-looking little girl on his hip, though. Addie’s got her arms around his neck and she’s trying to burrow into his chest. TK does sympathize.

“Family photo time!” Maddie trills, waving her phone. Pat flinches but it’s enough to pull Addie’s face out of his neck. The Patrick women settle in for a second round of Nolan-roasting, while Pats sends increasingly pathetic looks at TK’s wine glass.

“Sorry, princess,” he says, because he does feel bad about drinking the wine, actually, but he’s also had a glass and a half of it, and his filter—never the most reliable to begin with—is maybe misfiring. In his defense it’s not even the first time he’s called Patty a princess, though: there was that time in his shower, trying to keep it together in the face of all that water running down all that smooth, white skin.

“What,” Nolan monotones, and maybe TK would have been able to play it off, but Maddie’s stifling a snort and waving around the princess photo on her phone. Pat sees it, proceeds straight to destructo mode, and ends up chasing her around the living room while she shrieks with laughter.

Addie turns to TK, very seriously, and says, “Coach TK, I think you need to put a red sticker in their behavior folders,” and he really cannot disagree.

So ladies’ night ends up being a little more—inclusive. TK pokes around in the kitchen and comes up with non-pizza dinner, the elder Patricks watching him defrost salmon, fluff quinoa, and sauté frozen green beans in lemon and olive oil as if he is performing literal witchcraft. Addie gets to help fluff the quinoa. Patty gets smacked on the fingers with a spatula when he tries to sneak a green bean out of the pan, while Maddie coughs out something that may or may not be the word _kinky_ from the relative safety of the far side of the island.

They all pile into the living room and put their plates on their knees while Maddie cues up the continuing adventures of Anna and Elsa. TK’s about as familiar with the storyline as one man who has never actually sat down to watch a Frozen movie can be—he works in an elementary school, how the fuck could he not be—so he lets himself zone out a little, pay more attention to how his leg is pressed up against Patty’s, the arm that lands across the back of the couch once they’re done eating.

Addie starts fidgeting halfway through the movie—Patty looks at a stopwatch he has running on his phone, whispers “she broke her record” to Maddie—and they break out the nail polish. Pat turns bright red and suddenly loses the ability to make eye contact with anyone in the room, when Addie very seriously asks him if he wants orange or glitter orange or pink or glitter pink. He goes with regular orange. It clashes with his skin tone and his green hoodie and every single thing about his entire demeanor, but TK is totally into it.

He requests alternating glitter pink and glitter orange for himself. It’s a lot of look, but TK can be a lot sometimes, so. It tracks.

“Do you know how hard the glitter polish is to get off?” Pats asks him.

“No, why?” TK inspects his nails. Pat’s already smudged his trying to tuck his hair behind his ear. Addie’s proceeded to Aunt Maddie’s manicure.

“You’re going to have that stuck on your fingernails for like. A week.”

TK lets himself lean up against Patty’s shoulder, smiles up at him. “Voice of experience, buddy?”

“One time,” he mumbles. “Never again. I’m still getting chirped about it.”

After Maddie’s done Addie’s nails—glitter orange, so she can be like Gritty—they play the sit-still-and-watch-the-movie game while their polish dries. Addie’s wiggling all over the couch, trying to climb on Patty’s lap and then squirming back into her own seat. TK thinks they need to get her into an organized sport ASAP: burn off some energy. And he’s seen her in P.E. class, it’s not like he doesn’t think she’d enjoy it. But then again, it’s not like Nolan Patrick #19 is unaware of the existence of organized team sports, or unable to pay the $400 for her to join a youth basketball team; and Patty’s probably got enough people telling him enough shit about what to do with her. He’ll figure it out.

“Bedtime, kiddo,” Maddie says, when the movie’s ended. She carts a protesting Addie up the stairs, and then they’re alone with the end credits for Frozen 3. It’s still early—8, 8:30—something like that, and that seems like so much time. They’ve already spent more time together today than they ever have before: St. Louis was choppy, Patty in and out for skate and lunch and a game.

“I want a fucking drink.” Patty flops back against the couch cushions, drags an arm over his face. “That always makes me feel like such a fucking alcoholic. When I want to, but I can’t.”

“I think having a five-year-old would make anyone want a drink. At least occasionally.”

“She just—doesn’t quit. Ever.”

“Have you thought about like, putting her in sports.” TK cringes as soon as he’s said it: so much for being like, chill, and not offering like, parenting suggestions.

Patty doesn’t seem offended, though. Just tired. “Yeah. Obviously. It’s just—I dunno. I kind of don’t want her to have so much—pressure. Like, focus on one thing too early, or whatever, and so many of the youth leagues get so damned competitive. I want her to just—have fun, eh. Be a kid.” There’s something unspoken there, TK thinks, a _not like me_, even though Pat loves hockey, that’s clear to anyone; but anyone who knows anything about his history knows that he never did anything else, really, not baseball or soccer or whatever, and who can fucking know if that would have affected his injury history, but it probably didn’t help. TK teaches P.E. and coaches two sports; it’s not as if he’s unaware of the issues around overspecialization in youth athletics.

“You don’t have to decide now,” is what he says. “But I can give you some suggestions for leagues if you want, and coaches who don’t totally suck.”

“Maybe, yeah.”

They kind of—blink at each other for a second, like, _what now_, or at least that’s what TK’s thinking. But it’s obvious, right, so instead of thinking about it TK puts his fingers on the side of Patty’s face and leans in and kisses him at the corner of his mouth. He opens his eyes after a second: Pat’s are closed, his long eyelashes down against his cheeks, and he can feel a faint scratch of stubble as his fingers wander along his cheekbone, down his throat to the point of his collarbone. His skin is warm under the well-worn fabric of his hoodie; TK sees a flash of glitter on his thumb, orange against olive green, and he laughs into Patty’s mouth.

“What, Jesus,” Pat asks, nipping his lower lip as punctuation. His eyes are half-open, at the intersection of hazy and offended and, yeah, turned on.

“The damned nail polish,” he says into the skin under Patty’s chin, lips moving over his stubble.

“You really fucked up with the glitter.”

“Maybe I like glitter.”

Patty snorts, sits back and tugs TK into his lap like he weighs nothing at all. TK stretches up, liking the way Pat’s eyes go to the strip of skin that exposes along his stomach, gives a pleased little wriggle when warm fingers touch his hip. Pat’s hands are massive, and now he’s thinking about all the other places he wants Pat to put his hands, all the places he wants to put his hands on Patty.

“Is it too early to go to bed?” he asks, leaning down to tangle a hand in Pat’s hair, pull his head back so he can get at the skin of his throat.

“I don’t know,” Patty snarks, “what do you think?” and yeah, TK can feel Patty’s vote under his ass. He grinds down and kisses him hard, liking the way Pat’s nails are digging into his hip, the wet heat when TK licks into his mouth.

“I think you want me to fuck you,” he says, lips moving on lips. Patty’s cheeks are all pink and his mouth looks red, already used, and TK can feel his dick twitch between his thighs.

“What do you think?” he repeats, and if he’s aiming for that snarky tone again, he misses by a mile. His voice is all deep, raspy, and TK pins his wrists to the couch by his shoulders, leans in so he’s right up in Patty’s ear.

“I think,” he murmurs, “you want me to put you on your hands and knees, and eat you out until you’re crying. I think you want it so bad you’re going to beg me to fuck you, before you’re even ready, when you’re still so fucking tight that I can barely get my dick inside you.”

He tightens his fingers on Patty’s wrists, listens to him swallow and feels the thud of his heartbeat, where their chests are pressed together. Pat swallows again. Says, “Yeah, okay,” looking straight into his eyes—so blue against the scarlet of his cheeks—and leads TK upstairs by the hand.

He locks the door, mumbles that Addie’s pretty good about staying in bed but that she’s not perfect. TK will notice what the fuck his room looks like tomorrow, but right now all he’s paying attention to is the soft glow of a bedside lamp, set next what’s got to be one of those extra-large king beds with piles and piles of snow-white sheets. Pat’s bright red, rolling down the coverlet, tossing a couple of little decorative pillows onto a chair. It’s hot, to see him being careful, fidgeting with the blankets and thinking about TK fucking him until he comes all over those very expensive sheets.

TK strips him, takes his time with it, kisses every inch of his perfect white skin. He leaves beard burn, an impression of his teeth, marks the hell out of him until he’s pink all over, looking so fucking gorgeous biting on his lower lip, his pretty dick hard against his belly and his nipples wet with TK’s spit. TK wants to suck him so he does, wants to get his tongue on every inch of Nolan’s body, wants to lick the crease of his thigh, wants to taste the sweat under his arms and along the ridge of his spine. He’s got Nolan on his stomach by then, and he’s working his way down towards his ass, not even sure what he’s saying against his skin, just listening to the way Patty’s breath jumps every time TK lets a finger drift towards his opening.

His whole body goes tense the first time TK licks him, seems to wind tighter and tighter the wetter he gets, even when it feels like his ass is practically trying to drag TK inside. It’s—a lot, so much, taking Nolan apart with his tongue, feeling the way his body flexes around his fingers, watching his back bow the first time TK nails his prostate. TK fucks him with his tongue until he’s whining again, trying to hump the bed, and then he keeps going until Nolan’s past begging, boneless and panting against the sheets.

“Fuck,” and TK barely recognizes his own voice, it’s all low and hoarse, and his tongue is sore, and he’d go forever except he thinks he will, actually, die unless he gets inside Nolan in the next ten seconds, “three fingers and you’re still desperate, baby.”

Nolan has his face buried in the space between pillows. TK bites the back of his neck, licks away the sting. He feels all kinds of crazy, possessive, like he wants to get inside Nolan and never fucking leave. His hands are shaking by the time he’s rolling on a condom, pressing kisses between Nolan’s shoulder blades, the side of his neck, the specifically perfect curve of muscle where his neck meets his shoulder.

Patty’s tight even after all the prep, even after TK spilled probably way too much lube over his dick. He’s almost expecting some kind of snarky comment when Patty pushes up on his shoulder, rolls himself over. But that’s not it.

His face is—everything, eyelashes clumped together with sweat, tongue on his lower lip, frantic red circles on his cheekbones, and he doesn’t say anything, just grabs the back of TK’s neck and pulls him back down. His mouth’s all warm and wet when he lets TK fuck his tongue in, when he’s whining in the back of his throat and licking at the roof of TK’s mouth like he’s chasing the taste of his own skin. It goes slack when TK’s pushing in, slow and careful, saying all kinds of soft shit into his mouth, against the stubble under his jaw, his chin, smoothing the hair back from his temples and telling him how perfect he feels, how perfectly he’s taking it, that he’s gorgeous and that TK’s going to take care of him, _please, baby, let me take care of you_.

It’s maybe a bunch of bullshit except that TK means every word, and he thinks—in the small part of his brain that’s still capable of thinking about anything other than the way Nolan’s eyelids flutter shut, the little _ah_ sound he makes every time TK thrusts in, Jesus Christ, the _feel_ of his fucking _body_, hot and tight and slick—he hopes, he really fucking hopes, that Nolan’s hearing what he’s saying. What he’s meaning. And he thinks he does, because Nolan’s holding onto him so fucking tight, with his legs around his waist and his arms around TK’s neck, tipping his head back to be kissed like he already knows TK’s going to be there.

He gets a hand on Patty’s cock and he’s coming in a second, pink all the way down to his nipples, body tightening like a vise around TK until he’s coming too, as deep as he can get, for what feels like for-fucking-ever but still isn’t long enough, could never possibly be long enough.

They’re kissing again, as soon as TK’s come down from it, all loose and wet and aching, nose to nose and looking in each other’s eyes until Patty’s scrunching up his face, pulling TK down into his neck. Fine, he can kiss that, too, feeling tendons shift and the thump of his pulse when Patty leans his head back with a sigh.

TK doesn’t want to talk, for once, just wants to kiss Nolan’s neck, lap the sweat off his collarbone. He knows he should get up, clean them up, deal with the condom, but he doesn’t want to leave the bed, either, wants to stay right where he is with every inch of their bodies touching. Patty doesn’t seem like he’s in any hurry, tilting his head until TK’s kissing him again, this soft little kiss, lips and the barest suggestion of tongue. It’s soft as hell, white sheets, Nolan’s pliant mouth, one of his hands stroking gently, so fucking gently, up and down TK’s spine, fingertips and the warmth of his palms.

At least until he palms TK’s ass, gives it a possessive squeeze, smirks up at him with lazy blue eyes like he’s so goddamned proud of himself.

And, well, okay, he fucking should be: looking like that, feeling a million times better. TK’s sorry for every goddamned asshole who’s ever going to look at Patty for the rest of his life, and not get to know _exactly_ how it feels to come balls-deep inside that _perfect_ ass.

“A-plus,” he says, “would fuck again,” and Patty’s groaning, shoving at him but not letting him get any farther away, either.

Patty wants a shower eventually, so they drag themselves into the bathroom. It’s as nice as Patty had promised, even better once he’s leaning Pats up against a tile wall, a rainfall of water on his shoulders as he soaps him up from his collarbone to his knees. Patty closes his eyes and lets him, lips stuck somewhere between a pleased little curve and pressed together like he’s trying to keep it a secret. TK thinks that’s his favorite Patty face: happy but too stubborn to want anyone to know it, not even here, behind two locked doors and the steamed-up glass of the shower stall. He kisses his dimples, the hollow at the bottom of his throat, bends down to his nipples. Patty sighs and lets him, one big hand spread out on his lower back, one twisted through his hair, cupping the back of his skull.

TK would have thought he couldn’t get it up again to save his life, but it turns out he can, with the steam and the slickness of the water and the needy little noises Nolan isn’t bothering to try to swallow once he gets going, two hands knitted together on the wall beside his shoulder and two hands moving together on their dicks. It takes a while—neither of them are sixteen anymore—but there’s no urgency to it, just open mouths, hot skin, and TK would stay here forever, anyway, tells Patty that into his shoulder, tells him he’s gorgeous, tells him when to come and he does, head back against the tile and pink all the way down his throat, until he’s blinking the water out of his eyes, shooting TK a challenging blue look and sliding down the wall to his knees with his face turned up. “Come on,” he says, in a low voice that TK feels in his balls, Jesus Christ, and then he’s coming—how the fuck could he not—shooting ropes of white all over that pink skin, those red lips.

They’re both a little shaky after that, not bothering to dry off all the way, leaving towels in the middle of the bathroom floor and pulling pajama pants up over still-damp skin. Nolan unlocks the door when they’re both decent before collapsing back onto the bed with a sigh, letting TK drag the covers back up on the bed.

“Shit,” he mumbles, eyes most of the way closed.

“What,” TK asks, from where he’s curled himself up on Patty’s shoulder.

“Got the fucking wet spot.”

“Move, then.” His own eyes are closing and he’s not making himself any lighter, that’s for damned sure. Patty’s still grumbling about it but not making any effort to shift over, and TK falls asleep to the slowing cadence of his voice.

Waking up the next morning is significantly more…aggressive. It starts with the door getting blasted open, and ends with Addie cannonballing into his left kidney. Patty’s still got his eyes closed, making sleepy little grumbling noises as he paws vaguely at Addie, tugs her down onto his chest. She puts up with it for about a minute—just long enough to let TK’s body think it might have a chance of falling back asleep—before she’s wriggling around again, nailing his other kidney with one bony elbow.

“Adeline,” Patty says, opening one eye just about halfway.

“Why’s Coach TK still here?” she asks. She looks—wide awake, sitting carelessly on top of Pats in a pair of green dinosaur pajamas.

“Sleepover. Like your cousins.” Pat, on the other hand, looks like he’s still mostly nonverbal.

TK takes pity on him. Once he’s awake all the way, he’s usually awake. “Want to help me make breakfast, Addie? Let your dad sleep a little more?”

“You don’t have to do that,” Pat mumbles. “I’m getting up.”

TK doesn’t want to call him a liar to his face in front of his tiny little daughter, but both of his eyes have slid closed again. TK tows Addie off him with one arm, throws her over his shoulder while she giggles. “No prob, bud, we’ve got this under control.”

Patty’s too busy not-sleeping to respond.

TK figures out the coffee machine, sautés some sweet potatoes and a bell pepper and an onion for a breakfast hash. Shows Addie how to scramble eggs with a fork. The Patrick fridge is surprisingly well stocked, considering that no one living in the house seems to know how to cook. He asks about it and Addie says that Mrs. Brown comes three days a week to make dinner and vacuum, and brings groceries with her, and Addie always has to clean up her toys extra carefully on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays so they’re not in her way—and that’s a little twist in TK’s stomach. Of course Patty would be paying for help to keep up this gorgeous house, and he’s clearly clueless in the kitchen; but once again TK’s stuck thinking about all the distance between this townhouse on one of the nicest streets in Rittenhouse Square, and his cramped apartment on what is definitely not the nicest street—fuck, not even like, the tenth-nicest street—in northern Fishtown, his student loans and the car that he bought from a guy out in Conshohocken off of Craigslist when his truck bit the dust his first year teaching.

It is just very hard for him to understand what, exactly, Nolan fucking Patrick sees in him. He sees something—TK’s not an idiot, he doesn’t doubt that Patty would be doing any of this if he didn’t want to be. And it’s not even like Pat’s trying to keep him on the DL: he’s met his teammates, his mom, his sister; here he is in Pat’s beautiful light-filled kitchen with his daughter, trying to teach her some basic cooking skills so she isn’t an embarrassment like the older generation.

“I used to help Grammy make breakfast,” she says. TK found a stool under the sink and he is very closely supervising as she gives the eggs a stir.

“Yeah?”

“Muffins,” Addie announces decisively. “I’m the best at stirring muffins.”

TK’s never made muffins but he and Google can figure it out, probably. They’ve finished breakfast #1, he’s made her put her dishes in the dishwasher, and Addie is showing him the Grammy-approved way to stir muffin batter, before Maddie drags herself down into the kitchen. She’s yawning, hair piled on top of her head and an oversized University of British Columbia sweatshirt hanging off one shoulder.

“No sign of Nopes?” she asks.

“He’s having a sleepover,” Addie announces, “only by himself since Coach TK got up to make muffins.”

“So Coach TK can make dinner and breakfast _and_ muffins,” Maddie says, pouring herself a mug of coffee. “Really don’t know how my dumb brother lucked into that.”

“Don’t say dumb, s’not nice. You need to ‘pologize.” She points with the muffin spoon.

“Sorry, TK,” Maddie says dutifully. TK grins over Addie’s head and passes over a plate of eggs and sweet potatoes. She makes what might be a muffled _mm fuck that’s good_ noise, and, yeah, that’s not bad for TK’s ego. He can’t cook like, fancy shit, but Law has maybe gotten a little too accustomed to having a live-in private chef to be properly appreciative.

“Did you know he could cook before you locked that down?” Maddie asks, when Patty finally shows up. He’s still only looking marginally awake, hair sticking up at the back, a stripe of skin showing between his t-shirt and his sweatpants when he scratches at his lower belly. He is also free-balling, and TK has to stick his nose in his coffee mug before he can finish blatantly checking Patty out in front of his sister and daughter.

“Maybe.” Pat manages to smirk through a yawn, which takes a certain amount of commitment to the art of smirking. And there goes TK, getting all googly-eyed again over this big smug bitch and his stupid face, and how it looks perfect no matter what dumbass expression he’s making. “He kept saying something about stuffing muffins.”

“Oh my god,” TK says, poking him in the chest, “do not chirp the stuffin’ muffins, babe.”

“You said you didn’t know how to make muffins!” It’s TK’s turn to get a spoon covered in muffin batter pointed at him, and explaining the difference between stuffin’ muffins and regular-ass muffins does not seem to take. Everything gets a little chaotic, Patty sticking a plate in the microwave, batter flying everywhere except inside the muffin tins, Addie starting to shriek because her nail polish got a chip and that’s a disaster of epic proportions when you’re five.

Patty has skate at ten so it’s a relaxed morning, eating muffins in the living room while Addie acts something out with her army of plastic horses. Maddie corrals her to get dressed eventually, and Patty’s glaring at his phone and hauling himself off the couch to go get dressed. TK’s going to be sad to see those sweatpants go, that is for damned sure, especially when he’s walking upstairs behind Pats and has an eye-level view of how his ass is moving under the thin fabric. If there is ever a day when TK is not in awe of Patty’s ass, someone should take him out to the back pasture and put him out of his fucking misery.

In the daylight he notices a little more of Pat’s bedroom than just the, whatever, bed. Like everything else in the house it’s tasteful, relaxed, a soft gray rug and built-in shelves with an arrangement of Patty’s hockey memorabilia. There’s a fireplace on the wall, two big windows looking back over the garden.

“I guess I’ll head out, then,” TK says.

Patty blinks at him for a second, halfway into his Flyers hoodie. “You don’t have to,” he says, then kind of winces, “unless you want to, I mean, I know you’ve probably got better stuff to do than sit around here.”

There is absolutely no part of TK that wants to leave. “I don’t—I mean, I’d just be working out and like, cleaning.”

“Mads is taking Addie to a thing at the library this afternoon, and probably the park before that. So it should be like—quiet.”

“_Quiet_.” TK smirks up at him, twining a finger in the strings of Patty’s sweatshirt hood. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

Pat’s blushing, because of course he’s blushing. “Fuck you. We could like, go look at dogs if you want to do something later.”

“Oh, I know what I want to do.” It’s TK’s turn to smirk. There is only one thing in the world that he would rather do than like, go on a date with Patty to pet puppies, and that involves staying right here in this tastefully-decorated, masculine bedroom. Maybe get a fire going in the fireplace, put Patty down on the rug and finger him until he’s all pinked-up from the heat, until their skin’s slick from sweat.

“Jesus, you’re a fucking menace,” Pat says.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought it.”

“Who could blame me, babe. You’re so fucking hot.” He tugs on the strings from Patty’s hood, until he’s stepping in closer with a giant sigh, acting like he’s so put-upon. But it’s not like he’s slow to lean down and give TK a very…_thorough_ goodbye kiss, until he’s cussing under his breath, adjusting himself in his pants and muttering that he’s going to be late.

He pushes a key into TK’s hand before he’s scrambling out the front door, because he forgot he street-parked the Range Rover so TK could have the spot in the garage, and he doesn’t know where he left it. TK’s got it bad enough that he finds that charming, even though Patty’s currently exploring new heights of extreme privilege: oh no, having to _street park_ his _Range Rover_ because he only has a _two-car garage_ in _Rittenhouse Square_ and he’s enough of a gentleman to let his sister and his, whatever, maybe, boyfriend have the garage.

So Patty’s swearing and TK’s laughing, closing his fingers around the teeth of the key. He’s not reading into it—he said he wanted to go running, he needs to get back into the house when he’s done, it’s chill—but like, maybe. Maybe there’s a future universe where that could—happen.

He knows it’s batshit, probably. Eight fucking million and one things that could go wrong. Patty’s schedule, the pressure from his job; fuck, TK could get sick of dating a kind-of closeted guy, always having to watch what he says, staying on his toes so the wrong word to the wrong person doesn’t land Nolan Patrick of the Philadelphia Flyers in the middle of a media firestorm.

Or they could just—stop clicking. TK’s proud to say that he’s done a lot of work on himself since his last disaster of a relationship in college: he’s steadier and he’s calmer, thanks to yoga and Internet advice columns and yeah, okay, a few extra years of maturity; but he’s always going to be intense, he’s always going to have a lot of energy, that’s just the way it is. He talks a lot and he’s got big feelings and it seems like Patty’s fine with all of that, but things change.

Things can always fucking change, and TK can feel a familiar thread of anxiety unspooling itself in his stomach, but you know what? No. He’s not going to fuck with that right now.

He’s going for a run, and he’s going to use the keys he’s holding in his hand that unlock the glossy, black-painted front door of this stunner of a house. He’s going to take his yoga mat down into the gym in the basement, and he’s going to do some sun salutations, chill the fuck out. Do the things he knows he needs to do to take care of himself, and whatever the fuck is going to happen with Patty is going to happen.

And if it gets fucked up, it gets fucked up. That’s just fucking—life, or whatever.

He has a good run, a steady six miles to get his legs shaken out, keep his head on straight. It’s an easy hop over to the Schuylkill River trails from Patty’s, barely half a mile. He turns north once he gets there, keeping the iron-gray water on his left as he clicks off the next mile and a half up to the art museum, keeps going up past the brightly-painted peak roofs of Boathouse Row until his watch beeps at him somewhere in East Park. He watches the city rise in front of him on the way back—the sandy gold columns of the museum, the silver and blue angles of the Center City high-rises bracketed by tree branches, January bare.

He’s coming up to the front door just as the Patrick women are headed out, all bundled up in scarves and pom-pom hats for the walk to the library. Addie wants a sweaty hug; Maddie smirks at him and says, “Yeah, we’ll stay out as long as we can. Maybe get that pizza for dinner.”

So by the time TK gets his mat rolled out in the basement gym, he’s feeling—okay, he doesn’t want to be like, _I am hashtag blessed for dating an extremely hot extremely rich pro athlete_, because he’d take Patty if he were—well, on TK’s level, okay, halfway broke, single dad in a 9-5, driving a car that periodically makes rattling noises when it goes over 65—but that’s not even close to Patty’s situation, so fine, TK’s feeling…grateful, a warm buzz of anticipatory energy from his toes to the tips of his fingers as he flows through chaturanga, up dog, down dog.

He’s got mellow music in his headphones, piano and guitar covers of top 40, and he’s just fucking around—crow, dancer, some headstand pikes because that feels good—when he realizes that Patty’s gotten back. He’s leaning up against the door, eyes hot and tracking every single movement of TK’s body, and _fuck yeah_, he can work with that. TK might not be an NHL star, but he is very strong and he is _very_ flexible, and as a gay man who does a lot of yoga he is also _very_ aware of which poses show off his assets.

Patty agrees, if the way TK ends up pinned to the floor sucking on Nolan’s fingers while Nolan blows him is anything to go by. He returns the favor, makes Patty get two of his fingers wet, throws one heavy leg over his shoulder and fingers him until he’s coming down TK’s throat.

“Shit.” TK’s laughing into the crease of Patty’s hip; Patty’s twitching, over-sensitized from the vibration. “I’m never going to be able to do plow pose again without popping a stiffy.”

“Was that the one where you were on your shoulders with your ass in the air and your feet like, over your head.”

“Mm, yeah.” TK licks his way back up the flat expanse of Patty’s stomach, the line between his pecs, crosses his arms on his big chest and drops a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Liked that one?”

Pat heaves a sigh, mumbles _yeah whatever_ but he’s hiding a smile, grabbing a handful of his ass, sucking on his lower lip, and that is more than enough for TK. He knows the answer to the fucking question anyway, because plow had been the one that was, whatever, _inspirational_ enough to get Patty to stop leering from the door and get his perfect ass down on TK’s yoga mat.

Patty makes them smoothies while TK’s in the shower, narrowing his eyes and giving TK a flat stare, muttering “Jesus, I know how to use a damned _blender_,” when he gives his glass a cautious sniff before taking a sip. It’s good, and Pat does that thing with his face where he tries to hide how pleased he is that TK just complimented his stupid mango-spinach smoothie. TK’s laughing at him—the expression on his face and the dumb little smoothie mustache he’s totally unaware that he’s given himself—when his phone starts buzzing.

TK’s still snickering when he looks at his lock screen. It says _Mom_. “Shit,” he mutters.

“Bad news?”

“No, just my mom.” His throat feels tight. Thirty minutes of polite conversation with his mother is the last thing he wants to do right now, when he’s still all warm and bubbly inside, endorphins paired with a post-orgasmic high. Patty making him his specialty smoothie, his hoodie halfway zipped over his bare chest, the pale skin of his feet against the golden-brown floorboards. “I forgot today was our day to talk.”

“You should take it, then, eh.” Patty sounds like he’s being carefully neutral, like that could be a statement or a question, whichever way TK wants to take it. He’s got to have noticed the three holidays in a row that TK didn’t spend with his family, especially since the Patricks are so obviously close, Maddie and his mom trading long-term child-care shifts in Philadelphia, holiday cards and pictures of cousins stuck up on a corkboard over by the wine rack.

TK remembers what that felt like: Fourth of July barbecues, lazy afternoons out on the fishing boat with his grandpa and his dad and Chase, fidgeting in the backseat of his mom’s car on the way to take casseroles to his aunts and uncles and neighbors. It just turns out that he only got to keep all of that for as long as he pretended to be someone he wasn’t. He’s glad things aren’t like that for Pat, maybe even if that means that sometimes they’re a different kind of hard.

He answers the phone. “Hey, Ma.”

“You didn’t call—I thought something might have happened. You know how dangerous that city can be.”

He doesn’t roll his eyes. “I’m fine. Just got caught up in a few things, that’s all.” He tells her about running, about yoga—not the horny part—and his latest skirmish with the drama teacher, and the dumbest thing a parent emailed him about last week. She likes those stories, likes to hear about all the preciousness of upper-middle-class child-rearing. It can get ridiculous, TK will be the first to admit it, but he tries not to think about how it seems like she always uses them to feel—superior. Like all the next generation of the U.S. needs is a little less coddling, a little more straight talk, like there’s one right way and that is exactly the way he and Chase got raised, and fuck the rest.

She tells him about his grandpa’s latest physical therapy appointment, what she wants to do with her garden this summer, that the neighbors’ cat just had six kittens. She asks when he’s coming to visit, reminds him his grandpa won’t be around forever, reminds him they missed him for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

“You could come visit,” he says, like he always does. And just like always, there’s a reason it won’t work. They’re getting towards the end of deer season, this time. He always tells himself he’s going to stop asking, because it’s a surefire way to hurt every other fucking Sunday, but then the end of their carefully polite 30 minutes ticks towards a close and he finds himself asking anyway, just to see if today is the day she surprises him.

She never does. Doesn’t today, either, even if the rest of TK’s life feels like it’s been touched in gold.

Patty’s made himself scarce, vacated to the living room where he’s steadily mowing down rows of zombies. He holds out the controller, wordless, and TK takes it; takes the glass of wine Patty gets him next, even though TK wasn’t planning to drink in front of him again until his head stops fucking up. “Don’t have any beer,” he says, dropping to the far side of the couch. “Maddie doesn’t drink it, so.”

TK focuses on the TV, focuses on pushing buttons. Patty’s looking at the TV, not at him, and that makes it a little easier, maybe, to start talking about it. Being seventeen, stupid, a week before the start of his senior year; closing shift at the Pizza to Go on Railroad Street, so fucking lonely he could choke on it, making the dumb fucking choice to try to kiss his coworker and teammate from soccer, Nick, because he thought he’d—well. He’d been wrong, hadn’t he. Crying in the back of Lawson’s car afterward with a busted lip and a black eye—and yeah, Nick came out worse, like hell was TK going to let himself get knocked around just because he was fucked-up and delusional enough to, whatever, think he had a goddamned chance in hell of kissing someone he wanted to kiss as long as he lived in fucking Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania—but that made it worse, maybe, that Nick got beaten up by the fucking faggot. Shit went on social media, it spiraled. Bad talks with his former teammates—soccer, basketball, baseball, failing to talk Lawson out of quitting all three even though scouts had been watching him play baseball since he was fourteen years old; worse talks with his parents. Well, his parents talked at him, about _choices_ and _lifestyles_, TK wasn’t saying much by that point. But he didn’t get kicked out of his house even if he did stay with the Crouses for a while, and his parents helped him fill out his financial aid forms for college. He’d been fifty-fifty on going before, but by the time his applications were due it was feeling like a fucking lifeline. He got into Penn State, starting on the main campus and everything, and that reignited some shit on social media: the gay kid getting a spot instead of someone whose GPA was like, a quarter of a point higher. By then he wasn’t having to actually fight anymore, though, so he figured people could talk all they fucking wanted. Kept his head down, trudged towards graduation, got the hell out.

“It wasn’t that bad,” he said, putting a bullet in some flaming clown zombie’s face. “A lot of kids have it a lot worse. But, yeah. Things never really got—better, with my parents, so we’re just not—close.”

What Nolan says is, “Jesus fucking Christ, Travis.” He takes the controller, and pauses the game, and pulls TK’s face into the soft fabric of his sweatshirt. TK’s—yeah, he’s not _fine_ with what happened, because how the fuck could he be; but it’s in the past, he’s okay, and he’s doing what he can to, whatever, build healthier cultures in sports and model non-toxic masculinity. To be there for himself, the best he can.

That’s all the shit he tells himself on a regular basis. It’s all true. But right now, he figures it’s okay if he shuts his eyes, and breathes in the way Nolan smells, and feels the weight of his hand on the back of his neck, the fingers gently smoothing through his hair.

“I’m not, I don’t know. That good at talking,” Nolan says after a while, quietly. His voice is as much a rumble against Travis’s cheek as it is an audible noise. “But I’m fucking pissed that happened to you. Your fucking _family_, Jesus Christ.”

“It sucked, man,” TK hears himself say, instead of brushing it off like he always does. “Does suck, I guess.”

Nolan tightens his arms and kisses the top of his head, and they stay like that for a long time.

TK was wrung out enough to fall asleep, maybe, because the next thing he’s aware of is Pats carefully trying to shift him off his shoulder.

“Go back to sleep, babe.”

“Wasn’t sleeping,” TK lies, blinking and sitting up. Jesus, he can’t remember the last time he—napped? Spending all this time with a hockey player must be rubbing off on him.

“Tell that to the drool you got all over my sweatshirt,” Patty bitches, but he looks so—fuck, so like, _affectionate_, trying so damn hard to keep a soft little smile off his face.

“I did not,” TK says, also a lie, probably, but who gives a shit. He’d rather kiss Pats than keep arguing about it anyway, and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t, so he pushes him back against the arm of the couch and climbs all the way into his lap.

“This is okay and all,” Patty mumbles into his mouth an indeterminate amount of time later, steamrollering right over TK’s squawk of annoyance, “but the only way I got Mads to take Addie out all afternoon was promising to make some moves on the whole dog thing.”

TK sits back on his heels. Pat’s got his thumbs on TK’s hipbones, rubbing skin over bone in slow, steady circles. He’s all pink and well-kissed, his hoodie unzipped down to his belly button so TK could get at his nipples. “One condition,” TK says.

“I don’t want to know.”

“Don’t get the fucking chihuahua, buddy.”

“Oh, _fuck_ you,” Patty spits, and shoves TK off his lap. He hits the rug, cackling, before he pops up to his feet. Pat’s stalked upstairs by then like some kind of giant pissed-off cat—maybe he should get one of those, the like, giant Sahara cats you can take on walks with a leash—and TK tells him about it all the way to the adoption center, while Pats slowly cranks up the volume on his stupid hipster-boy playlist so he can pretend to drown out TK’s truly awesome idea. He’s pretty incognito-looking, except for the massive six-figure car—hat brim low over his eyes, anonymous gray hoodie, black jeans and his stupid untied Vans.

TK is finally unable to resist saying, “You’re going to trip on your stupid shoelaces,” and Pat rolls his eyes and shoves him through the door to the adoption center.

They talk to a cheerful-looking girl at the front desk, Pat rattling off some criteria—good with kids and other dogs, doesn’t have to be nice to cats, already house trained, max of 30 pounds, no known health or behavioral issues—while TK pokes a feather wand at a fat orange tabby in one of the big cages next to the desk. The cat stares at him through slitted green eyes, finally lifts one paw to bat one single time at the wand with an expression of profound disdain. Okay, yeah, maybe no cats for Pats and Addie after all, even if there are some really fucking cute little black and white kittens tussling with each other in the next cage over. Patty’s still talking to the girl at the desk—or, okay, she’s talking now and he’s listening—so TK unhooks the cage door and pulls out a kitten. He starts purring immediately, and he is so small and soft and warm that TK can hardly breathe.

“Patty,” he says. “Look at this kitten, dude.”

“No.”

“Come on.” TK shoots him his biggest, saddest eyes. The kitten rolls over on his back and starts trying to bat at his tail.

“No,” says Patty, but he’s definitely looking at the little puff of kitten and he’s definitely trying not to get soft about it. Too bad for him, his face will just never hold up that end of a bargain. TK snuggles the kitten into his neck and bats his eyelashes. “Absolutely not. Jesus, do you have something in your eye.”

“Yeah, tears, because he’s so cute.” TK very reluctantly disentangles the kitten’s little claws from his coat and slips him back into his cage, where he immediately pounces on his sister, like, _TK who? _“Good luck getting adopted, you little fucker.”

“Cats are assholes.”

“They fit in planes, though.”

“Oh, okay,” Patty says, suspiciously agreeable, “are you going to be the one to get its ass through the security line?”

TK feels like he barely got his own ass through the security line to go to St. Louis, so yeah, probably not. He shrugs and follows Pat into a cheerfully-painted little room, and gets ready to pet some dogs.

A lot of dogs.

TK’s bad at this, he’s realizing. “You should have brought Maddie,” he says, after Petunia the pocket pittie has been ushered out. Nolan rejected her as too hyper. “I can’t do this, man. Petunia was so fucking cute. She had the stupidest smooshiest face.”

“She tried to chew my shoe off my foot, while I was still wearing it.”

“She just needs manners and a healthy outlet for her energy,” TK says loyally.

“Are you taking her running,” Nolan asks.

“Uh, maybe?” TK feels caught out. Like, he absolutely _would_ take Petunia running, is the thing, but also…boundaries, and, yeah.

They meet every dog in the shelter that’s less than 40 pounds. If TK is bad at being sensible—like, seriously, he would have adopted every single dog they brought in, even the fat grumpy beagle that ignored both of them even more comprehensively than the fat orange cat, and just stood at the door barking for five minutes straight—Patty is bad at opening his heart to love, and TK tells him this.

“Shut the fuck up,” he mumbles, “you’re here, aren’t you?” and TK can’t breathe, like, actually, cannot breathe, and Pat’s making a face like he’s embarrassed to be caught having a feeling. “Shut up,” Patty says, even though TK’s still having a hard time getting oxygen into his lungs, much less summoning words. “Or like…don’t. Whatever,” after it’s gone on a while, and then he starts looking uncomfortable.

“Holy shit,” TK manages, finally.

“What.” Patty’s got his phone out, and from the speed of his thumb he’s scrolling through Instagram, maybe his secret twitter account.

“I just,” and TK sucks in a breath, is grinning, stupidly, “would never have thought you’d use the l-word before me.”

“I didn’t.” Pat is lying like a fucking liar, cheeks gone absolutely fucking scarlet.

“It’s okay, dude. I’ll take it to the grave.”

“Fuck you.”

“If that’s how you wanna play it, yeah.”

“Oh my fucking god.” Pat shoves his phone into the pocket of his hoodie, crosses his arms over his chest. “What the fuck do I even see in you, honestly.”

“My charming personality?” TK offers. “My ass? My yoga practice?”

Patty rolls his eyes. “Shut up,” he repeats. Then he says, “Maybe free babysitting and dog-running services,” with his stupid little smirk like he thinks he’s so fucking clever, and it hurts TK to look at him, his long legs slanting across the worn concrete floor, sitting in a plastic chair that’s a little too small for him.

“You’re such a dickhead,” TK says, and then adds “Oh and you too, _obviously_.” If they weren’t sitting in a fucking pet adoption center with nice big windows out onto the hallway, he’d be in Patty’s lap, kissing him, knocking his hat off to get his hands in his hair to pull him closer.

They don’t do that, though. Instead they kind of—smile at each other, Patty only halfway trying to hide it, TK’s insides going all gooey like an under-baked chocolate chip cookie. It’s probably too fast—how many times have they even hung out—but it feels _real_, okay. This is it for him, he’s pretty sure, even if it’s going to be hard, even if Patty’s kind of a bastard, even if he gets torn into a million pieces by Patty’s moods or the fucking national sports press or just the savagery of two people who love each other and still can’t make it work.

He thinks they will, though.

He really thinks they will.

The next dog is a tall, lanky lab mix with one pointed ear. She’s black with a white chest and white toes, and she’s wearing a cheerful pink bandana. She assesses the room and heads straight for Patty, sitting alertly next to his knee and politely sniffing his fingers, tilting her head to receive an ear scratch and leaning into his side.

“She’s a little bigger than you were looking for,” the shelter volunteer says. “But she’s just about the perfect dog.”

They take her for a walk around the block. Nolan’s fucking smitten, TK can tell. “Guess you’re gonna be chartering that jet, huh bud.”

“Shut up, she can get crated.”

“You’re not going to put this angel down in a dark scary cargo area all by herself.” TK bumps Pats with a hip. He doesn’t move at all, which is a little hot, but TK’s at the stage where he could probably find Patty’s like, nose hair sexy, so he’s maybe not the most unbiased source.

Pat texts Maddie an update while he’s filling out the paperwork, and gets back about 100 screaming emojis and gifs in return. She’s already spayed so like—there is nothing stopping them from taking her home, which is kind of a trip. The shelter gives them a bag of dog food; Patty makes a donation with a _lot_ of zeroes on the end, leading to a picture for social media that he looks embarrassed about but not displeased by. And that’s kind of—it.

“Holy shit,” TK says. “You got a dog, dude.”

She’s sitting in the back seat. Her tail thumps on the leather when she realizes they’re talking about her.

“I think your dog is smarter than both of us.”

“I hope Addie likes her.” Patty’s starting to look a little worried.

“Addie’s gonna love her.” The dog sticks her nose in TK’s ear, as if in agreement.

“We didn’t really see her play, though. What if she won’t play?”

Pat’s freaking out. TK reaches over and puts a hand on his quad. “Chill, dude. She’s a dog. She’s going to like playing. She will play with your kid.” The dog thumps her tail harder, gives the world’s quietest and most polite little woof, a happy-seeming wiggle. “Babe. She’s agreeing with you.”

“I fucking hope so,” Pat mumbles. He squeezes the Range Rover into a parallel parking spot, texts Maddie an update. It’s getting dark out by then, and TK feels like he’s lived at least like, three days since Addie hurtled into bed with them that morning. He should be tired, probably, and maybe he will be if he stops moving, but right now all he wants to do is follow Patty and the still-nameless dog down the brick-paved sidewalk, in and out of patches of light from people’s front windows, the lamps by their front doors. The dog does her business under one of the big old sycamore trees lining the street, then sits on the front stoop next to Patty’s knee while he unlocks the front door. It’s glossy black—she matches.

Pat squares his shoulders and pushes the door open. TK gets a video going, catching the shape of his shoulders as he steps onto the black-and-white tile of the entryway, the click of the dog’s toenails as she follows him inside. There’s an inquisitive noise from inside, the sound of running feet when Pat calls Addie’s name.

TK’s right behind him, catches the exact moment when Addie sees the dog and freezes.

“Remember how we say hello to new dogs,” Patty says, in the gentle tone of voice that TK’s only heard him use with her.

Addie’s eyes are huge blue saucers in her face. Maddie’s standing behind her, also holding up a phone; her eyes are suspiciously red. Very carefully, Addie steps up to the dog, offers her a hand to sniff, then carefully pets her neck, palm down, just like she’d practiced at the park.

The dog’s tail starts going again, slowly at first, then faster, and finally she gives another full-body wiggle and shoves her face into Addie’s chest.

“Do we get to keep her?” Addie whispers. Her eyes are going from the dog to Nolan and back again.

“What do you think?” Nolan asks, kneeling down so he’s on their level.

Addie’s really crying now, tears dripping down her face as she nods and throws herself into Nolan’s chest. Maddie’s teary, too, knuckling at her eyes; and yeah, okay, TK’s not exactly—unmoved, and even Mr. Resting Bitchface himself is looking suspiciously damp around the tear ducts by the time he stands back up.

The dog—still nameless, since Pats categorically rejected her shelter name and is trying to guide Addie away from naming her Princess Elsa-Anna of Arendelle—lets Addie wrestle her around on the living room floor, wagging her tail and wiggling her butt and giving a few quiet woofs of excitement. Maddie’s on Facetime with the Winnipeg crew, camera aimed towards the action down on the rug, but eventually Mrs. Patrick says, “Oh, hello, Travis,” and he gives an awkward wave from the couch. Pat’s got one arm wrapped around his shoulders and he’s warm all along TK’s side.

“Hi, Mrs. Patrick,” he says dutifully, and Facetime-meets Patty’s dad and little sister Aimee. They’re all planning to come back down for the All-Star break to meet the new addition to the family.

Addie pops up from the floor and says they have to let TK make them breakfast, because TK makes the best breakfast, and both he and Patty are blushing but fuck it, whatever. Pat’s got a mulish expression on his face like he’s daring his mom to say a single word, and Aimee nudges her with a pretty blatant elbow and says she can’t wait to meet him.

So that’s happening, apparently.

Things wind down eventually. It’s getting late, and TK’s got drop-off duty in the morning, but he can’t quite seem to pry himself loose from Patty’s side: not on the couch, not when he’s taking a drooping Addie upstairs to read a bedtime story. He and Pat tag-team _If You Give a Moose a Muffin_, and Patty blushes about it, mumbles something like _shut up_ _it’s still so unrealistic but she likes anything with animals_, and TK feels a warm rush of affection, from the bottom of his stomach all the way to the base of his throat.

Maddie’s out walking the dog when they get back down to the kitchen, allegedly to heat up something from Pat’s meal service for a late dinner, but really all TK does is push Pats up against the side of the island and kiss him. Not urgently—he has to go, doesn’t he, even though that seems less and less important the longer they stand there making out, Pat’s big hand in the back pocket of his jeans, his thighs bracketing TK’s hips, swallowing his pleased little sighs and touching the warm skin of his hip.

“Hey,” Patty says, pulling back.

“Yeah,” TK answers, kissing the corner of his perfect mouth, the face he makes immediately, like he wants to act like he’s disgusted by all this soft nonsense but can’t quite pull it off. TK wants to spend the rest of his life figuring out how to interpret this big hot dumbass’s facial expressions, which specific fractions of a smile he will allow himself in which situations, what he has to do to get him to let the whole thing loose, to make him laugh until he’s red and wheezing.

“Can we talk,” he says, which are never words that anyone in a relationship wants to hear, so it’s TK’s turn to make a face. Patty sighs and squeezes his ass, presses a kiss into his temple. “Whatever. Not like that.”

“So like what.”

“About Addie.”

“Okay.”

“I mean, you haven’t—asked. About how she’s—here.”

“I didn’t want to like, pry, dude.”

Patty lets out a grumbling kind of sigh, pushes TK off to go inspect the inside of his fridge. TK gets it. He gets that all of this is kind of—huge for Patty, seismic shifts right down to the base layers cradled around his core. Addie, TK—even like, the _idea_ of TK, as more than just some kind of nebulous some-day person—new house, new dog, new contract. It’s obvious that Pat’s not somebody who wants to put it all out there on blast; also clear that he can be goal-oriented enough when he wants to be, in both the metaphorical and literal senses of the phrase.

“It’s not a great story,” he says, to the carefully-labeled containers of food delivered by his meal service. “Like, I’m not—proud of it.” His shoulders shrug; he pulls out something with Sunday: Dinner typed on the side, reads some instructions and shoves it in the microwave.

TK wishes he had something to do with his hands, a vegetable to chop or a pot to stir. Instead he fidgets with his phone, turning it over and over in his fingers, the hard curves of plastic, the rough edge where his case is cracked.

He says it all in as few words as possible: met a girl at somebody’s lake party the summer after his rookie year. Still trying to convince himself someone like her could ever be what he wanted. They fucked a few times, nothing serious, usually drunk, neither of them was as careful as they should have been. It turned out she had a real boyfriend the whole time anyway, so when Nolan heard that she was pregnant, he wondered about it but didn’t reach out. Never heard a word about it until two years later—the migraine year—_what a fucking year_, he says, rubbing his eyes and watching the timer count down on the microwave. The boyfriend found out that she’d been fucking around on him that summer, demanded a paternity test, things took off from there: fights with his parents, tense conversations with his agent. She had a lot of issues by then—alcohol, pills—and by the time Patty knew Addie was his kid, she was living with her grammy anyway. He started paying child support and she met the Patrick side of the family, but there was never any intention that she’d be living down here in Philadelphia.

“Until her grandma got diagnosed with cancer,” he says, quietly, to the pasta he’s spooning out onto two plates. “It was—quick. And so. Yeah. Here we are.”

“That’s—so much. Damn, dude.”

He shrugs, rinses off the spoon and sticks it in the dishwasher. He’s not quite meeting TK’s eyes. “My mom wanted her to stay in Winnipeg. Thought it would be an easier—transition, or whatever. But Jesus, I mean, I’m not asking my mom to raise my fucking kid. Not making Addie feel like she was getting—I mean. Not make her feel like I didn’t want her. I don’t know.”

“I think you’re doing your best,” TK tells him.

He presses his lips together, not to hide a smile this time. TK wants to tidy away the hair that’s curling in front of his ears, wants to kiss the corners of his eyes. Doesn’t particularly think that Patty wants to be touched, though, so he leaves it. “I wasn’t doing my best back then.”

“You are now, though. You did once you knew.”

“I’m fucking trying, man,” and he sounds—tired. TK slides around the island, wraps his arms around Pat’s waist and presses his face into the space between his shoulder blades. He’s tense at first, then relaxes, slowly, muscle by muscle, until TK’s taking his weight.

The pasta’s cold again by the time they get around to eating, but TK doesn’t care.

The Flyers have a homestand that week, finally, and it’s not like it’s easy for them to see each other—TK has a normal fucking job with normal hours, and Patty’s out there mowing down Leafs on NBC Sports Philadelphia from 7pm to 10pm—but they manage. TK sneaks out of Rittenhouse Friends for lunch Tuesday; Wednesday the Flyers are off, and he goes over to the townhouse for dinner, gives Mrs. Brown the housekeeper the night off and makes dinner for her and the Patricks. Nothing fancy, just chicken and roasted cauliflower and a salad, but she looks approving. The dog—who the smallest tyrant in Philadelphia has finally christened Winnipeg Oreo, Winnie for short—is too well-behaved to beg, but Patty is another story. TK remembers being 18, a bottomless pit of starvation basically 24/7, but Pat eats so goddamned much food it’s kind of astounding, and there’s not an ounce of fat on him anywhere. Life as a professional hockey player in January, or whatever.

They read Addie a bedtime story, and TK asks if Patty wants to go play CoD or something, but gets a look in response: half-lidded blue eyes, the telltale flag of his blush, and they go to bed instead. He doesn’t mean to fall asleep in Nolan’s bed but he does, wakes up at some absurd in-between hour of the night; tries to get up to go home—he has to work tomorrow, he doesn’t want to show up in the same fucking clothes two days in a row, Kess will actually murder him—but Nolan’s blurry with sleep, making a displeased noise and pulling him right back down.

TK means to do the right thing but he’s only human. They fuck, Patty liquid and boneless against him, body hot and tight, and it feels like the best dream he’s ever had: licking salt off the side of his neck, the quiet sounds of their skin moving together in the dark.

Lawson’s in the kitchen when he finally makes his way home after work on Thursday, wearing Wednesday’s clothes after a long day of being screamed at by Amanda Kessel about _Travis fucking Konecny how could you be holding out on me like this_. He raises a golden eyebrow. “Howdy, stranger.”

“Shut up,” TK tells him.

“Not saying a fucking word, bud,” he says.

They crack open a couple of beers and watch the game from opposite ends of the couch. TK hides a smile in his beer every time Pat’s on the ice, thinking about Patty kissing him right here on this ugly upholstery, the first time he got to see what he looked like when he came and taste the inside of his mouth. He’s wearing the #19 jersey they fucked in in St. Louis—he _did_ manage to get the come stains out of it, thank you very much, he wasn't literally raised in a barn.

“What are you—I don’t like the way you’re _smiling_,” Law says suspiciously.

“I can’t be happy?” TK grins, kicks his feet up onto Lawson’s grandma’s coffee table.

“Oh, fuck you.” Law sighs and throws the pull-tab from his beer can at TK’s head. TK swats it back towards him out of the air. “You know I want you to be happy, you shithead.”

“Just thinking about some happy memories on this couch.” TK smirks at him as Law groans.

“Not _that_ happy on _my_ couch, Jesus Christ.”

“Fuck you, it’s my couch, too.” They descend into standard-issue bickering, punctuated by yelling at the TV and the refs and a particularly stupid high-sticking penalty by Farabee. Hayes picks up the puck on the PK, though, and it’s pretty fun watching like four different Leafs bounce off of him as he charges back up the ice to score a shortie.

The Flyers are still making it look easy by the time the All-Star break rolls around, and TK and Pats are—well, okay, it’s still not easy for them to see each other more than two or three times a week, but they’re figuring it out.

And it feels easy when they’re together, taking Winnie and Addie for walks around Rittenhouse Square; TK trying to teach Patty how to make food using appliances more complicated than a microwave or a blender; chirping each other about video games; Patty trying to figure out how to braid TK’s hair because he doesn’t make fun of his pathetic-ass efforts the way Maddie and Addie do. TK is not going to lie: it gets horny a couple of times, Patty’s fingers against his scalp, hot blue eyes staring at him in the mirror of his giant marble bathroom.

“Remember my parents are coming down,” Pat mumbles. He’s sitting behind TK in bed, working on his braiding skills. It’s not one of the horny times, unfortunately. TK’s vaguely wondering how long he can let his hair get before the director of the P.E. department starts making noises about the dress code.

“I did not forget,” he says. He hasn’t been—dreading it, exactly. More like he’s been feeling—apprehensive. It’s not like Mrs. Patrick was ever like, _un_pleasant to him, but it’s kind of hard to ignore the fact that she isn’t exactly…_supportive_, either. He’s heard the tail ends of a few phone calls, watched Maddie roll her eyes and say “Come _on_, Mom,” a few times.

“It’ll be weird to be staying in town,” Patty mutters. He taps on the back of TK’s wrist and TK hands over one of Addie’s pink scrunchies. He ended up wearing one to work yesterday by accident, rolling out of Pat’s bed right into the chaos of getting a five-year-old ready to go to school. Kess will probably never stop harassing him about it. “Just me and all the old guys.”

“You’re not exactly one of the rookies anymore, babe.”

Patty’s twisting the scrunchie around on the back of TK’s head. TK tries not to squirm around too much. He wouldn’t have said he had a thing for having his hair played with, but he might, possibly, be—developing one, when Pat pinches his hip and tells him to_ hold still you little fuck_, that low voice right behind his ear.

It gets horny after that.

The Patrick family flies down for the last game before the break, a tight-fought OT loss to the Bruins. TK and Law watch from the corporate seats; the Patricks are all up in a box, Addie for once being allowed to stay up for a whole hockey game on a school night. Patty had asked if TK wanted to be up in the box, and TK had turned him down—he’d rather hang out with Law, drink a beer the size of his face and not have to watch his language when he’d rather be heckling Brad Marchand.

TK’s feeling—a lot of things, probably, when the lamp lights up a minute and a half into OT and the Flyers file off the ice. He’s disappointed in the game, and trying not to feel—possessive about Nolan. He wants to be there tonight, wants to poke at Patty’s sad-face until he rolls his eyes and throws a video game controller at his head. Wants to hug Addie good night, wants to try to convince Pat to let Winnie sleep on the bed with them instead of in her basket in the corner of the living room. He wants a lot of things, and none of them involve driving Lawson back to Fishtown after an L, brushing his teeth in his tiny little bathroom and climbing into bed by himself.

He texted Patty _bummer you’ll get em next time_ before they left the Farg; his phone buzzes on his nightstand before he can even start falling asleep.

_Come over tomorrow_, it says.

_Won’t you have stuff w your fam_

He can visualize Patty rolling his eyes at the blue square of light from his phone, down in the kitchen or lying in bed already. _Just dinner_, he says, then a few seconds later, _it’s Friday, you can stay over_.

_Are you sure_

_yes I’m fucking sure Travis_, and he can hear Patty’s mumble inching towards the bitchier end of his spectrum.

_Ok then see you tomorrow bud_.

Work’s controlled chaos. It keeps him from getting too stuck in his head about dinner with Patty’s family, at least. They’re doing swim safety at the UPenn pool with grades 1 through 3, which is always just—a struggle. Everything he owns ends up smelling like chlorine and he’s always paranoid he’s going to let a kid drown on his watch. In theory the pool’s staff are supposed to be doing most of the heavy lifting, in practice TK has at least two crying six-year-olds who are scared of the water attached to him at all times. One of the lifeguards—practically a child himself—tries to hit on him. It’s…a long day. Just, a very long day, the clock moving simultaneously too fast and too slow, an oil slick of nerves in his stomach.

Patty and Winnie show up to the pickup line to get Addie, Pats underdressed for the weather as usual, Winnie dancing in place when she sees Addie. TK doesn’t have duty—he’s just lingering, waiting for Pats to show up—and Miss Hendrix narrows her eyes at him.

“So you’re actually friends with Nolan Patrick.”

“Yup.”

Patty’s looking at something Addie pulled out of her backpack. He’s wearing a gray beanie, hair curling messily out from underneath the knit fabric, and he’s rocking a pretty greasy neck beard, and his stupid shoe laces aren’t tied even though it’s like a ten minute walk to Friends from the townhouse, and everything about him just—hammers TK in the chest. Hard.

“You lucky fuck,” she says, and TK knows he’s supposed to be being chill about this, but he can’t quite manage it all the way, grinning at her before he spins off to go thump Pats in the shoulder.

“What’s up, bud,” Patty says, trying to act like seeing TK doesn’t make him smile, and failing.

“Just happy to see my favorite dog.” He scratches Winnie’s ears and she leans into his leg, whacking his hamstring with her tail a few times.

They walk back down towards the townhouse, taking a detour through Rittenhouse Square Park to let Addie run around screaming for a little bit. She’s starting rec soccer in a few weeks, Pat says, not a super-competitive league—chose that over hockey_, because she already knows how to play hockey, _apparently, said with a tolerant roll of his eyes. It’s clear he’s trying to stay out of it, though, let her pick her own thing. She wants to do a horseback riding day camp over the summer, he says, with one of her friends from class—TK doesn’t like thinking about the summer that much, because he knows from years of Instagram that Pat never stays in Philadelphia longer than he has to, flying out immediately to Winnipeg before leaving for Hawaii or Mexico or wherever there’s sand and palm trees and deep-sea fishing. But if Addie’s dead set on pony camp or whatever, maybe they’ll be back for a few weeks. TK would like that: he could take Pats and Addie to a Phillies game, go to one of the beer gardens right on the river, under the shadow of the Ben Franklin Bridge. See how sunburned Patty’s nose gets, see if he ever turns a color other than milky white. Sit up on the townhouse’s rooftop deck, legs stuck together with sweat, watching the sun set over the angles of the city.

But all of that feels far away, standing in Rittenhouse Square Park on a January afternoon. It’s cold and a few snowflakes are starting to drift down from the iron-grey sky, and Pat’s standing there in a hoodie like a complete fucking moron.

“Let’s go before you get frostbite, Winnipeg.”

“I’m fine,” Patty says, even though his hands are shoved in the pockets of his sweatshirt and he’s pulled the hood up over his beanie.

Addie zooms back up to them, cheeks flushed from the cold and exertion. “Hey, TK, did you remember I’m going to play soccer like Rose Lavelle?”

“We’ve talked about this, Addie,” Pat says. “Who are some of the _Canadian_ players you want to play like?”

She stares down her nose at him. “But Team Canada _sucks_ at soccer.”

“Maybe they’ll be better once you’re playing for them,” TK offers, and is immediately speared with a look of equal disgust.

“I’m not playing _soccer_ for _Canada_. I’m going to play _hockey_ for Canada and also go to the Olympics for horses and maybe volleyball ‘cause I liked it when we played volleyball last week in class, but I want to do the kind that’s on the beach because I like the beach better than a gym.”

All TK can really say to that is, “Same.”

Addie keeps up a steady stream of chatter for the rest of the walk back to the townhouse, explaining to TK why he should make dad let her go to pony camp—TK promises he’ll do his best—and that if being a professional athlete doesn’t work out, there’s always becoming a dog trainer or a veterinarian or maybe an astronaut. And also, it’s snowing! Which is really exciting because it hasn’t snowed in a long time and she still hasn’t gotten to shove anyone into a snow bank the way Aunt Maddie said she should.

By the time Patty’s unlocking the front door, the shoulders of his hoodie are dotted with moisture and his cheeks are redder than Addie’s. TK loves him to a degree that is absurd and still a little frightening, watching him make a face as he kicks off his damp shoes on the black-and-white tile of the entryway. He wants to kiss him, wants to tuck the half-damp curls of hair back behind his ears, take him upstairs and turn on the fire in his bedroom and curl up for a while, sharing air and body heat.

It’s not going to happen right now—Pat’s parents and his little sister are in the kitchen, Addie’s struggling to get her shoes untied and her coat unzipped at the same time, someone needs to towel off Winnie’s paws—but it’s a nice thought, and maybe Patty sees it on TK’s face because he blushes a little deeper, can’t quite stop his blue eyes from flicking down to his mouth.

“Later, babe,” TK says. He knows he’s got a smile on his face, some soft affectionate little thing. Addie’s finally free of her outerwear, thumping off towards the kitchen, and Winnie’s mostly dry and her leash is hung on the back of the doorknob.

Patty leans over and kisses him on the top of his cheekbone, just a little feather of breath and lips, fingertips on the back of TK’s wrist, there and it’s gone.

TK drinks a beer with Pat’s dad, talks about hockey. Patty—and he should probably be thinking about him as Nolan for now, since when he said _Patty_ he got two additional pairs of Patrick sibling eyes looking at him—steals a few sips, rolls his eyes when his mom opens her mouth to say something.

“We’ve had a homestand, I’m not going anywhere for the break, I’m fine,” he mumbles, and she shuts it.

Mrs. Patrick and Aimee are making dinner, a whole roast chicken and a pan of Brussels sprouts and carrots, and some other thing on the stove that looks like it involves a lot of potatoes and dairy. Maddie makes sure to announce loudly and at length that TK’s a great cook, actually, rhapsodizing over his ability to sauté vegetables and stir them into pasta like he’s the next coming of—TK doesn’t know, he doesn’t really like, keep up with professional chefs or whatever—but someone who can prepare nutritious food that doesn’t suck. She makes it obvious that he’s been, whatever, _around_, and TK doesn’t know how he feels about that, exactly, about the assessing cast to the way Nolan’s dad is looking at him.

He can hold his own in the conversation about hockey, at least, then football when they pivot to Super Bowl LVII, the Packers vs. the Texans. He’s happy to shoot the shit about sports pretty much any day of the week, but he doesn’t love the way Nolan’s dad almost seems like he’s—quizzing him, in a way that is very Canadian-polite but also like…there is a bar to be cleared and Mr. Patrick is not going into this conversation assuming that he’s going to make it over.

Then they talk about fishing, about hunting, and TK is a fuck of a lot more of a redneck than these people so that’s fine, too. It’s not like he has a lot of opportunities for either, living in the middle of Philly and kind of not really trying to go back home to freeze his ass off in a deer blind with his dad who will barely admit that being gay isn’t a lifestyle choice; but he can still bullshit over bass fishing and eight-point bucks with the best of them.

“Dad,” Nolan says, after a while. He takes another swig of TK’s beer. “Chill.” He’s staying close, not right up in TK’s space or anything but not that far off, either, playing tug of war with Winnie or fucking around on his phone.

“What?” his dad asks, looking vaguely guilty.

“It’s okay,” TK says. He wouldn’t have called Nolan’s dad actively _un_-chill, but he appreciates the moral support, even though he feels like he shouldn’t need it.

“He’s going to grill you about your golf handicap next,” Nolan tells him.

“Uh, yeah, golf is not really my thing, so we can stick to fishing, maybe,” which ends up to be maybe not the best response because Nolan’s dad is a total fucking evangelist for the sport of golf. By the time dinner’s ready TK has been talked through every golf course in the Philadelphia metro area, and Mr. Patrick has a five-point plan to get him out onto the links. TK is really more down for Top Golf than like, actual golf, but he smiles politely and says _yeah sure okay_, as if they are in fact going to go to the Patrick family’s favorite golf course off the turnpike and get him some lessons with a pro.

Maddie corners Mr. Patrick for dinner, ending the inquisition. They sit in the dining room, which TK has barely even been in—Nolan and Maddie get in trouble when Addie voices that sentiment, and the Patricks go a round or two over proper table manners and the importance of family dinner time. After that they transition to catching up on people from Winnipeg that TK doesn’t know; instead of feeling excluded it’s kind of—nice, actually, to sit back and let the conversation wash over him. Granted that wouldn’t usually be his speed, but he’s trying to be on his best behavior, and he doesn’t want to start running his mouth and say the wrong thing about Tiger Woods and piss of Nolan’s dad or something. He’s sitting next to Nolan anyway, and he maybe gets distracted a few times by just—his face, the deep sound of his voice. TK’s trying not to think about a few things, here: that it’s been a few days since they saw each other, and that it feels like a minor kind of torture that he isn’t kissing Nolan right at this exact second, that he has to keep it cool in front of his family instead of sucking up a red mark on the hinge of his jaw.

But it’s fine, yeah, like he said out in the front hall: later. There’s time. Nolan’s going to be in Philly for an entire week, and of course TK would never be resentful that like, his family’s here. They’re close, it’s obvious. He likes that about Pats, even, how he acts like he doesn’t give a shit but still knows everything about the guy Aimee’s dating, asks about the new boat his uncle wants to buy.

Maddie wants to take Aimee out to some fancy club after dinner. TK’s just as glad Nolan doesn’t want to join them, even though his parents say they’re happy to watch Addie if all the kids want to go out; Nolan says he needs to catch up on sleep, and TK’s pretty tired anyway, after a long day of keeping small children alive in a high-risk environment and then being on his best behavior for Pat’s parents. And it’s not like he’s going to complain about curling up on Patty’s super-comfortable couch, letting Nolan hold his hand under the throw blanket while he talks to his parents with a Raptors game on in the background.

They go to bed after the game. TK maybe dozed off a little, not asleep all the way but not exactly awake, either; has to ask for the final score of the game when Nolan’s herding him upstairs, shutting the door behind him and turning the lock on the knob. They always have to be quiet—Addie’s just across the hall—but Nolan’s even quieter than usual, coming in TK’s hand with a hitch of his breath and a long, shaky sigh.

“Thanks,” he mumbles into TK’s hair.

“Any time, bud.” TK kisses the side of his neck, open-mouthed. He feels like he’s slipping back into sleep, warm and soft where he’s tucked against Nolan’s side.

“I know you were stressed out about hanging with my parents.”

“Wasn’t.” That’s a lie but he thought he was doing an okay job of hiding it, figures he should keep sticking to his guns, anyway, even though it all went fine.

“I know you were.”

“Mm,” is all TK says, because he’d rather be sleeping, and apparently Nolan agrees because he just sighs, again, and tips TK’s head up for a slow kiss, and that’s how TK falls back asleep, still feeling the pressure of his lips, the living weight of the arm across his back.

TK’s awake before Nolan, and as much as he would like to stay under his soft, heavy blankets, listening to the sound of his breath and trying _very_ hard not to stare at his sleeping face like a fucking creeper—he’s not going to succeed. Nolan just has an outstanding face, even with a line from the pillow and a crust of sleep inside his eyes.

He makes a displeased little noise when TK moves, and TK gently thumbs away the crease between his eyebrows, kisses the delicate skin over his temple. “Go back to sleep, babe.”

He gets a vaguely unhappy grumble in response, that feels like it’s cracking something open inside his chest. TK smooths the blankets over his shoulder, waits for his face to relax again before he swings the rest of the way out of bed.

TK doesn’t think anyone else is awake yet, but Addie’s door is open and he follows the quiet sound of Saturday morning cartoons downstairs. Mrs. Patrick is in the kitchen, staring at the coffee machine like she’s willing it to drip faster.

“Morning,” TK says.

“Morning,” she answers, and something in the tone of her voice, the set of her eyebrows as she attempts to glare the coffee pot into submission, remind TK so much of Nolan that he has to turn a smile into a yawn.

Addie and Winnie come thumping out from the living room, so TK’s obligated to dole out some hugs and pets to both. Mrs. Patrick—_call me Carrie_, she grumbles at the coffee carafe—hasn’t taken Winnie out yet so he shoves his feet into his sneakers, grabs a coat off the hook by the door that turns out to be Nolan’s. It’s massive on him, smells like Pat, and he wraps it tighter around his torso as Winnie picks her way down the street. It kept snowing overnight, and they must be some of the first on Nolan’s block to have ventured outside—everything is dusted in white, and they leave a double line of footprints in the pristine surface of the snow. The air is cold on his face but Winnie seems to like it, bouncing a few times at the end of the leash and using her nose to flip snow up in the air.

Carrie’s got her coffee by the time they get back, and seems at least slightly more verbal. She’s making some kind of breakfast casserole, so TK figures he’s off the hook for breakfast duty and retreats to the living room with Winnie to check out some cartoons. Addie’s wide awake, so a quiet Saturday morning of watching cartoons turns into coloring books turns into pretending to be two dogs from Paw Patrol (Winne is not assigned a role as a dog, TK doesn’t really get it but whatever). TK knows he was an active kid—his mom’s told him enough times, and god knows he remembers the itch under his skin of trying to sit still in school, on a church pew—but he’s pretty sure Addie’s worse. He and Chase would sit still for Saturday cartoons, he knows that much, but not Addie. So here they are, sprinting laps around Pat’s living room.

He’s worked up a sweat by the time Nolan shows up, looking characteristically sleep-ruffled, sock feet and sweatpants with a hole in the knee.

“Not even going to have to work out later, dude,” TK says. “She could teach a HIIT class.”

“Don’t I know it,” Nolan grumbles, with the specific expression he makes when he feels like he should be complaining about Addie, but can’t actually make himself find her anything other than 100% charming. TK figures it will come with time, or maybe it won’t—hopes that Patty still goes all soft about her when she’s thirteen, when she’s twenty, whoever she wants to fuck and however she turns out to want to live her life.

He spends the rest of the weekend at the townhouse—takes Maddie and Aimee to Core Power (yes, with the hot instructor), helps make dinner on Saturday night, a snowman in the back yard on Sunday morning because it never stopped snowing; he takes them out to Lemon Hill in East Fairmount Park to go sledding, seven people and a dog all crammed into the Range Rover with two sleds strapped on top. Nolan has a terrible sense of direction as soon as he gets away from the streets he drives regularly, so it takes them twice as long to get there as it should: he keeps missing exits and getting roasted by every member of his family, especially Maddie and Aimee—TK’s pretty sure they’ve got something more interesting than plain coffee in their travel mugs—but it’s one of those bright-edged days where everything is funny. Even Nolan’s laughing by the time they finally make it to the park, and they’re late and there’s no parking left other than one spot that’s basically on a snowbank.

Maddie and Aimee take one sled, Nolan and Addie the other, and TK’s fine chilling with Winnie and the elder Patricks at the top of the hill. Winnie maintains a steady state of bouncing, not taking her eyes of Addie as she goes flying down the hill, barking every time she shrieks when they hit a bump; and every time she comes running back up to the top, Winnie has to inspect her from the top of her head to the soles of her snow boots, wagging her tail once she confirms that her person is okay.

It turns into a little bit of a thing—some of the other Flyers families show up, the ones with kids old enough to be in school and get in the way of a vacation to Baja: the Pitlicks, Girouxs, a d-man who just got traded to Philly in December. That’s fucking trippy, again, standing around with _Claude Giroux_ shooting the shit about the weather, and the best Target in the Philadelphia metro area.

A day in the life of Nolan Patrick, he guesses.

He doesn’t have time to get up in his head about it because Patty’s trudging back up the hill with the sled, pink-cheeked and grinning with Addie hanging off his back. “Hey, do you wanna,” he says, wagging the sled, and it takes TK a second to get it; but fuck yeah, he does want a turn on the sled, actually, even more when he realizes that Pats fully intends to cram both of them onto it.

They pick up some serious speed, hit a serious bump, go sprawling at the base of the hill. They’re both laughing; Claude Giroux is yelling something from the top of the hill about _don’t you dare get injured Patso I swear to God_; but it’s okay, TK’s there to cushion his fall—Nolan landed mostly on top of him, elbow fully engaged with his diaphragm, knee barely missing his balls.

The only thing that TK can do, with the laughter of the assorted kids ringing in their ears, Maddie howling when Aimee nails her with a snowball, Mr. Patrick’s low voice saying _by now_ _you should know better than to start things you can’t finish, Madison_—the only thing that TK can think to do, other than kissing him, other than nipping at his lip until he’s red from something other than the cold, other than saying _hey bud you know that I do, actually, love you, right_, because he doesn’t think he needs to say it, really, from the way Patty’s face has gone all still, the considering pause of his tongue on his lower lip, the way his eyes are soft and steady in a way that TK never, ever would have thought this man would focus on him—

So the only thing he can do, right, is to grab a handful of snow, and shove it down the back of Patty’s hoodie because he is _actually_ so fucking stupid that he is wearing a hoodie—a fucking _hoodie_—to go sledding, with the justification _I’ll warm up once I get moving_ like he’s not from _Winnipeg_ and he doesn’t understand that snow _melts_, that cotton is not _waterproof_.

TK might not be famous, and TK might not be rich, but for god’s sake TK knows how to tie shoelaces and wear weather-appropriate clothing. So really, it’s him that’s helping Patty, and he tells him so, while Pat is yelling at him and they’re wrestling in the snow, until finally TK pops out from under him and tears off down the field. Someone lets go of Winnie’s leash and she charges down the hill after them, barking her head off and racing in loops around their knees; Addie’s there a minute later, hitting Nolan with a sideways tackle. He lets her shove him over and the three of them pile on top of him in the snow, and this moment is just—it.

Winnie’s dog-treat breath, the thick fur around her neck; the crystalline ring of Addie laughing, her round cheeks and her sloppily-braided hair.

And yeah. _Nolan fucking Patrick_, with orange nail polish halfway chipped off under his gloves, because he’s too lazy to find the nail polish remover and take it off; with his hair straggling out from underneath a gray beanie, his half-wet hoodie, the way he’s pretty bad at talking but how he seems to keep showing up, and showing up, and showing up: getting competitive about animal noises for reading circles and throwing out invitations to fly to St. Louis and how he’s never, not once, not since they kind of—figured it out, given TK a reason to doubt that he’s, whatever. In it.

TK’s needy, okay, he knows that, and he knows they’re going to have to talk about hard things, that he’s going to be a mess sometimes and that Pat’s going to shut down. There are going to be some nights that doors get slammed, that one of them is going to be working something off in the basement gym. He doesn’t think he’s lying to himself about how hard it’s going to be: the grind of the NHL schedule; Patty’s status, someone saying the wrong thing on Twitter or Reddit or a puck bunny Tumblr; all of the differences between their bank accounts, their vacation plans, how they deal with their families, fucking all of it.

But he can—trust this, he thinks. Trust them.

“What’s wrong with your face,” Nolan asks him, all suspicious.

“I’m happy, dude,” he says. “Just—happy.”

“Ugh,” Nolan says, and then it’s TK’s turn to get a handful of snow to the face. But Patty can’t lie to him at this point, between the flush in his cheeks and the curve of his mouth and how he pulls TK into the sunroom at the rear of the house once everyone is back home. Warm hands, soft lips, not going anywhere with it—Jesus Christ, everyone’s in the kitchen, _maybe_ nine feet away, there’s no way TK should be thinking about going anywhere—like down on his knees—kissing the cold skin on the top of Patty’s thighs, rubbing his nose into the musky smell between his legs—but they’re just not going there. They’re not, and they don’t, TK pulling back with one last nip to Patty’s lower lip, Patty keeping a hand on his lower back when they make it into the kitchen. Maddie making a gagging face behind her parents’ backs, Addie helping Aimee stir cocoa on the stove.

“You want to stay tonight, too?” Nolan asks him, after dinner. They’re doing the dishes; everyone else is in the living room, arguing about what to put on TV. “It’s closer to school.”

“I’ll stay as long as you want,” TK says, and means it, and it turns out that Pats doesn’t really want him to leave, ever, and he doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> As I explained to makeit_takeit in one particularly despondent email, this whole journey was subject to a known feral raccoon snatching up my outline in his little black-nailed paws & skittering away with it up to a hole in a dead tree & gleefully chittering down at me about how black cherry Truly tastes bad, instead of "doing what I wanted."
> 
> So there are a few things I intended to wrap up a bit more neatly--perhaps I will write them later, perhaps I will leave them be. Sincerely hope that this did not detract from your enjoyment.
> 
> Feel free to come say hi on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/canarynary) if you like screeching about the Flyers.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Cut to the Feeling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22923820) by [Annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annapods/pseuds/Annapods)


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